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WILLIAM JONES 




WILLIAM JONES 

Memorial Bust in Bronze by Edwin Willard Deming presented to the 
American Museum of Natural History by the Sculptor 



WILLIAM JONES 



INDIAN, COWBOY, AMERICAN SCHOLAR, 
AND ANTHROPOLOGIST 
IN THE FIELD 



BY 

HENRY MILNER RIDEOUT 



NEW YORK 
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
MCMXII 



41 



Copyright, 1912, by 
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

All rights reserved 




June, 1912 



f /•?€ 

©CI.A3166I6 
1A^> I 



5 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I A Memory 1 

II Early Years 7 

III Cowboy 17 

IV Hampton and Andover 24 

V Summer Work 36 

VI Harvard 1896-'97 39 

VII Harvard 1897-98 49 

VIII Harvard 1898-1900 61 

IX Life in New York 72 

X On the Plains 85 

XI Among Northern Indians 91 

XII Doctor of Philosophy 103 

XIII The Question of Money 118 

XIV The Philippines 127 

XV In the Wilds 145 

XVI Dangers 191 

XVII The Last Day 202 

XVIII Conclusion 210 



WILLIAM JONES 



WILLIAM JONES 
From a photograph taken in Chicago, 1907 



WILLIAM JONES 



i 

A MEMORY 

In the spring of 1900 — about the time when 
the grass began to be green in the Yard at 
Harvard College, and the leaves of horse- 
chestnuts on Cambridge streets to appear 
as knobs like the tips of young horns — two 
friends lay and sunned themselves in a warm 
corner between brick buildings. They were 
both young, both poor, and by all rights 
should have been thinking of their uncertain 
futures. Instead, they lay talking of the 
past, of boyhood, of things which they liked 
to remember and tell at haphazard, there in 
the spring sunshine on the new grass. Down 
a street leading to the Charles, people were 
beating carpets, so that, in the pauses of 
reminiscence, echoes galloped up like the 
sound of flying hoofs. 

One of these two men had a career already 
opening before him. He had won scholar- 
ships, as a junior had distinguished himself 

[i] 



WILLIAM JONES 

in the study of anthropology, and now could 
hope that, after taking his A. B. in the ap- 
proaching June, he should go out and capture 
new honors in science. Close-knit, spare, and 
muscular of frame, he had a face entirely 
different, strikingly different, from the vague 
undergraduate type, — a rather massive face, 
already full of character. Experience had 
written on it, and left it marked with kind- 
liness, decision, and that clear, untroubled 
thoughtfulness which comes not from books, 
but from life in the open. His eyes — brown 
as his hair, with specks of golden light in 
them — had a habit of looking off into dis- 
tance; at which times they turned impene- 
trably sad, became almost the eyes of an 
Indian, and gave to his other features the 
look of stillness, far-off preoccupation, and 
sober dignity that is seen in the higher type 
of Indian countenance. But when they came 
back to close range, or suddenly met the eyes 
of a friend, they lighted up again with pleasant 
humor. The upper part of his face was re- 
flective, melancholy; the lower, full of de- 
termination, a fighter's. Any stranger would 
have known him, at sight, to be gentle and 
brave. Active in body, and with a spirited, 
searching mind, full of quiet fun and play- 

[2] 



A MEMORY 



fulness — for which children especially loved 
him — he gave always an impression of force 
concealed, animation below the surface, and 
courage held in reserve. This appeared also 
in his voice, which was quiet and low, and 
which he seldom raised above ordinary pitch, 
indoors or out. 

On this spring morning at college, he did 
something which to his friend had all the in- 
terest of rarity. He spoke about himself. 
To reproduce his words is impossible, as it 
now is to convey the charm of what he said, 
his diffident way of raising and lowering his 
bright brown eyes, of plucking up a grass- 
blade with sinewy fingers, or waving them in 
a gesture very slight but very full of meaning. 

He remembered — he said — lying rolled in a 
blanket on the prairie, when he was a little 
boy. Something woke him, something wet 
and cold on his face. There was a gray mist 
over everything: just enough to show him 
that the cold object was a pony's nose, and 
that three ponies, side by side, were standing 
over him in hesitation. They did not wish to 
step on him, and had halted. The riders were 
three Indians, on their way home from some 
place where they had been drinking all night. 
The man in the center, who was the tallest 

[3] 



WILLIAM JONES 



and oldest, was also the most drunk; and his 
two companions, leaning from either side, 
propped him in his seat. All three were wail- 
ing together some long lament, the mournful- 
lest thing ever heard. Their ponies sniffed at 
the little figure in the blanket, decided to go 
roundabout instead of over, and sheering off, 
bore away the three tall riders through the 
prairie dawn. It was like having seen the 
ghosts of the last Indian people. 

The boy in the blanket, now grown up, re- 
called many other things about his native 
plains, and many other aspects — noble and 
touching aspects — of the people he was born 
among. He went on to tell of these: of the 
Indian's ancient customs; the Indian's life on 
the prairie in the old days; the Indian's lan- 
guage of signs; beautiful myths, colored with 
camp-fire poetry, enacted by heroes, by cun- 
ning supernatural beasts, or those witch- 
driving gods whose forked stick is the light- 
ning; beliefs concerning the soul and the Great 
Mystery. He told other things, that would 
make any honest white man more or less hot 
with shame, that would cause one at least to 
understand how, when young Indian gradu- 
ates from the eastern schools returned home 
again, their elders might laugh sadly at the 

[4] 



A MEMORY 



report of honest white men, alive and actual, 
off there. But all these matters were not told 
for the sake of being written down. 

A bell rang. The spring morning had be- 
come noon. The two young men brought 
their holiday to an end, rose, and went else- 
where. 

This was not the common way of talking 
among college men, who (in Cambridge at 
least, ten years ago) considered the habit of 
lounging on the grass as a kind of affectation; 
but William Jones was no common product 
of the colleges. His boyhood resembled the 
boyhood of Hiawatha with Nokomis; his 
career took him, as on an abrupt curve, 
through some of the highest complexities of 
our civilization; and when he had become the 
chief authority in Algonkin lore — indispensa- 
ble, humanly speaking, to the work he had 
chosen — it was his fate to be sent off to the 
far corners of the tropics, there to meet death 
suddenly at the hands of savages. 

"I was born out of doors," he wrote, from 
the jungle. "Now it looks as if I shall keep on 
under the open sky, and at the end lie down 
out of doors, which, of course, is as it should 
be." 

He would not have desired any part of this 
[5] 



WILLIAM JONES 

e 

book to be written. His friends, now scat- 
tered into many places, have thought that 
the story of his short life should be recorded. 
Let friendship, therefore, be the excuse for 
this account, not of the scientist and his 
achievement, but of a young man who, every- 
where he went — among curators of museums, 
artists in their studios, plainsmen in their sad- 
dles, or Indians in wigwams — endeared him- 
self to many persons lastingly. 



[6] 



II 



EARLY YEARS 

William Jones was born March 28, 1871, 
on the Sauk and Fox Reservation, in what 
was then Indian Territory. The blood in his 
veins was a mingling of Welsh and English 
elements, with a strain from a clan of Indian 
rulers. 

This, briefly, is the story of his forebears. 
His great-grandfather came from Wales to 
this country, time enough to serve under 
General Washington in the Revolution. His 
grandfather, William Washington Jones, was 
born in Kentucky, went to the west with 
Daniel Boone, entered the army, fought in 
the Black Hawk war, and while in Iowa mar- 
ried the daughter of Wa shi ho wa, a Fox 
chief.* A white-haired man, skilful as a 
hunter, William Washington Jones became 
well known as a scout, in the days when the 
prairie was still the Far West. By Katiqua, 

* The Sauk and Fox Indians, then and later, occupied lands in 
Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. By the Treaty of February 18, 1867, 
they were assigned a new reservation in Indian Territory, to which 
the main body of them were removed in and after November, 1870. 
Katiqua's people moved from Iowa to Kansas, in 1845. 

[7] 



WILLIAM JONES 

the Fox chief's daughter, he had three chil- 
dren, of whom only one is living, — a son, born 
in Iowa in 1844. This son — Bald Eagle, as 
his mother's clan called him — took from his 
father the name of Henry Clay Jones. He 
remained in the Indian lodges until he was a 
youth well grown; and then, wishing to see 
something of the world, he journeyed out into 
a white community, went to school, learned 
the trade of blacksmith, and met a young 
English girl, Sarah Penny. "He could not 
gain the consent of her parents to a mar- 
riage," writes one of Mr. Jones's friends, "un- 
til he had proved himself capable of caring 
for her, as a white woman, in a good home. 
He went back to the reservation, opened a 
blacksmith's shop, prepared a habitation that 
seemed to meet the requirements, and then 
returned in less than two years for his reward. 
For years Mr. Henry Jones has been a leading 
member of the Indian council, an interpreter, 
a blacksmith, and a farmer," who has had 
the respect of his neighbors, both white and 
Indian. His young bride, when brought to 
the new-built house, may well have found her 
life strangely transplanted and transformed, 
beyond even the lot of brides. "But her 
years were few," our informant tells us. 

[8] 



EARLY YEARS 



"When her first child was a year old, she died, 
leaving her little son William, or Willie as she 
called him, to the care of his Indian grand- 
mother." 

In a letter written at Harvard College on 
his birthday, William Jones has recorded 
the following memory. The passage would 
seem to have an added meaning, an after- 
significance, from the fact that death came 
to him also in the spring, though in a country 
where there is no return of our kindly seasons, 
nor division of days except by sunlight and 
darkness, nor any memory of things gone by. 

"My dear old grandmother used to tell me 
that I was born in the springtime, when the 
bluebirds were coming from the south and 
were looking about in the dead trees for holes 
to build their nests in. Grass was just com- 
ing up, and with it the flowers. She used to 
tell me how she would carry me about, and a 
whole lot more things which I sometimes live 
over, though more often they seem but a tale. 
Then the summer went by, and the winter 
followed, and the next spring they laid my 
mother to rest. This is the way she recorded 
time, and that is the way it has always come 
to me. Others have told me the exact dates, 
but it has never been so pretty as the way 

[9] 



WILLIAM JOXES 



my poor simple-minded, and possibly pagan, 
grandmother used to tell me. How strange 
that she too should have died at the same 
time of the year." 

Although on the government rolls his name 
was "William," and although to some of his 
friends he was "Wee lee," the child bore by 
tribal custom the name Megasiawa, Black 
Eagle. After his mother's death, his grand- 
mother brought him to her lodge. Here, for 
nine years, she took care of her little charge. 
Katiqua could understand English, but would 
have nothing to do with the speaking of it; 
and so they two used always the Indian 
tongue. Their wigwam was of bark, with 
raised platforms along either side, on which 
were spread gay blankets or bright-colored 
mats of woven rushes. Outside, all round 
about, lay the plains with the wind sound- 
ing over them. Indoors, "this golden-haired 
child of a white mother and two white grand- 
fathers, passed the early years of his life, 
swinging by day in his little hammock cradle, 
or seeing life over his grandmother's shoulder 
from his perch on her strong back." 

Thus, through all that time of childhood 
which remains most vitally colored, and 
which would seem not only to form the basis 
[10] 



EARLY YEARS 



of all memories, but to give the imagination 
its lasting shape and texture, William Jones 
lived, and saw, and spoke, and thought as an 
Indian. It was in the ancient order, the 
prairie faith, and the old vanishing tradition 
that his grandmother nurtured him. She was 
an Indian of the highest Fox clan — the 
Eagle — was a chief's daughter born to lead, 
and with all the force of a strong character 
clung to the legends and customs of her tribe. 
What strange talk passed between her and the 
little boy, what rude poetic narrative by their 
evening fire, we can only guess at dimly. 
Glimpses of their life together appear in 
retrospect through the following notes, writ- 
ten down long afterward by one who became 
the first and dearest of the boy's friends when 
he entered our white man's world. 

"Among other accomplishments this grand- 
mother had the gift of healing, was what is 
known as a 'medicine woman,' an office that 
does not necessarily encroach upon that of 
the more priestly 'medicine man.' She knew 
the medicinal values of many roots and herbs, 
and could brew from them remedies for va- 
rious disorders external and internal. These 
things the child sought in the woods and on 
the prairies by his grandmother's side, at- 

in] 



WILLIAM JONES 

tended her while they and queerer potions 
were being compounded at home, heard and 
remembered much of the lore connected with 
them, and saw them applied at the sick bed 
or administered at the dance. 

"Preparations for the feasts and various 
tribal functions became a matter of familiarity 
to him, and as he followed his grandmother 
about the homes and in the sacred lodge, he 
saw and heard many things never intended 
for his child's eyes and ears, but which com- 
ing as they did so naturally, made little im- 
pression at the time, though in later years 
they became of great value in his scientific 
work. 

"Recalling these days in later life, he felt 
that he had been blessed in having had what 
he regarded as an ideal childhood. When 
with one who could understand his point of 
view, he loved to recall the happy days spent 
with his 'dear nokomis, 9 — the evenings round 
the fire, and the nights snuggled beneath her 
blanket on the long hard platform. ' Though,' 
he would add, 'it never seemed hard to me.' 

"Unusually intelligent and quick to imi- 
tate, the child learned without conscious 
effort, during these early years, the songs and 
dances of his tribe, and so thoroughly that 

[12] 



EARLY YEARS 



scarcely a phrase of them was forgotten. He 
could seldom be persuaded to exhibit either 
accomplishment, but when he did overcome his 
diffidence and forgot himself, he showed not 
only a rare grace of movement in the dance, 
but those little spontaneous variations that 
one sees enacted only by the older Indian 
people. 

"He always insisted that he could not sing, 
and would seldom join even in a large chorus. 
In his first school some one had laughed at his 
singing and so disheartened him that he never 
regained confidence in himself. But some- 
times out in the woods ' where no one but you 
and the trees can hear,' he would lose his 
restraint, and when once under the influence 
of the Indian music, sing song after song with 
absolute fidelity to the Indian phraseology, 
marking time with anything at hand that 
suggested the sound of the Indian drum. 

"It was always a regret to him as well as 
to his friends, that he had not been able to 
conquer his shyness and learn enough of 
music to write out the songs he knew so well. 
A friend to whom he was willing to sing them 
tried to take down some of the simpler songs, 
but never succeeded in getting them quite as 
he knew they ought to be. One only — a 

[13] 



WILLIAM JONES 



simple little one — remains to bear the stamp 
of his approval — the song he as a little boy 
sang to the snake, begging him to find the 
arrow he has lost in the grass. 

"As a little child he learned to imitate the 
call of the birds and squirrels, the wild prairie 
animals and the horses, and often amused 
himself, even in the East, by, as he said, 
'talking to them.' Any horse was of interest, 
and sometimes on the crowded streets he 
would stop to 'say just a word to that tired 
old horse.' Whatever it was, the horse would 
prick up his ears and seem to understand. 

"He also had a trick of patting on his knees 
the different gaits of a horse — trotting, can- 
tering, loping, galloping or running — so accu- 
rately that one could almost see the action. 
Imitating the reports of different firearms 
was another form of amusement. 'Hark,' 
he would exclaim, under his breath, 'do you 
hear that Winchester way over yonder?' 
And sure enough from 'way over yonder 5 
would come the sound that one could hardly 
believe was made by a human throat. 

"He could not remember when he had 
learned to ride, probably like other little In- 
dians, as soon as he was graduated from his 
grandmother's back; but he did have very 

[14] 



EARLY YEARS 



vivid recollections of the pony that shared 
his childhood and next to his grandmother 
was the dearest thing on earth, and never to 
be forgotten. 

"When the child was about nine years old 
the happy days with his pony on the prairies, 
and the wonderful tales told by his dear 
nokomis round the wigwam fire, came to a 
sudden end. The blow was a sharp one, the 
first, and as he used to affirm, the only real 
grief of his life, — the first sorrow (so far as he 
could remember) to bring a tear. Without 
warning — to him at least — the beloved com- 
panion of his days and nights lay dead in the 
wigwam. All was confusion and woe. The 
father whom he scarcely knew had come to 
take him away. He could not be comforted. 
New plans and new experiences had no in- 
terest for him. For weeks and months he 
sorrowed; and for years yearned for the love 
and companionship that had so enriched his 
early life. A staunch loyalty and tenderness 
toward those he loved was a very marked 
characteristic. Though he could have had 
no memory of his mother, he treasured a 
little picture his father had given him, always 
remembered her birthday, and would often 
say — 'I wonder if my mother knows this?' " 
[15] 



WILLIAM JONES 

His own birthday letter, already quoted, 
shows with what affection he dwelt upon the 
thought of his mother, and of the one who 
had taken his mother's place. 

His grief might have been mixed with 
wonder could he then have foreseen in what 
manner and after what strange transforma- 
tion of self, he should revisit the country of 
his childhood. That childhood was to be- 
come, as he said, "but a tale." He was to 
return as a white man, to find many things 
obliterated from the aspect of the prairies and 
their people; to learn that the old familiar 
smoke inside the lodges could seem unfriendly, 
smarting in the eyes of a foreigner; indoors or 
out, to hunt with scholarly painstaking after 
glimpses of all that life which the little Indian 
boy had seen flowing past him so vivid and 
copious. 

Meanwhile, he knew only his present loss. 
The chief's daughter was dead, the medicine 
woman gone beyond reach of magic. She had 
taught her young Black Eagle all that she 
would ever teach him. And now his father 
had come, to carry him from her wigwam. 



[16] 



Ill 



COWBOY 

In his new home, the boy found many 
strange faees. His father had taken a second 
wife, a woman from among the Cherokees. 
There were new half-brothers and half-sisters 
to be his playmates. The change, however, 
was not enough to make him forget his loneli- 
ness; so that presently, as this fact became 
evident, his father very wisely sent him to a 
school where he might live at a greater dis- 
tance from old associations. 

At about the age of ten, accordingly, Wil- 
liam Jones began to learn the white man's 
lessons, and to see the white man's world 
which he could claim, by proportion of blood 
and predominance of character, as his birth- 
right. After a few months at Newton, Kan- 
sas, where his mother's people lived, he took 
the next step of his eastward journey, and 
entered an Indian boarding-school at Wabash, 
Indiana. This school, maintained by the 
Society of Friends, was kept by an elderly 
couple, known as "maw" and "paw" to their 
large family of boys and girls from various 
[17] 



WILLIAM JONES 

tribes. Here the little Fox boy met his he- 
reditary foe, the Sioux, with whom he learned 
to live amicably; although, as we shall see, he 
never quite uprooted the stirp and stock of 
tribal antipathy, even in later years. And 
here at Wabash, under the gentle rule of his 
teachers, he began conning our stubborn 
primer of civilized life, and picking up his lost 
connections. The education given him was 
of a sensible, efficient kind, — part study, part 
farming. There were animals and poultry to 
care for, milk, vegetables, and eggs to look 
after, beds to make, food to cook, dishes to 
wash, and clothes to mend, as well as lessons 
to learn from books. These things the family 
of Indian boys and girls performed according 
to their best ability. Good-will was a work- 
ing principle in the school, and cheerfulness, 
and mutual respect. "A certain cherry tree," 
wrote a visitor, "illustrates the spirit of the 
place. In spring it would be loaded with large 
perfect fruit, and so low that any child could 
pick his fill; yet though thirty children passed 
within reach of it scores of times every day, 
not one cherry was ever touched." The pu- 
pils were honest, the farmer-teachers kind. 
In this environment the new boy, William 
Jones, made rapid headway, learning the Eng- 

[18] 



COWBOY 



lish that was literally his mother tongue, and 
doing well in all his study and work. 

After a three years' course, he returned to 
the Indian Territory and his father's house. 
Born out of doors, and bred in the saddle, he 
now discovered that his schooling had become 
the means of still greater freedom. It had 
given him "the key of the fields." Like many 
Indian boys of his age and horsemanship, 
Jones found that the ability to speak English 
admitted him to the free company of cowboys, 
and all that a cowboy's life still meant, some 
twenty years ago. It was a rough life, in 
more senses than one; it was a good life, as he 
used long afterward to say, with emphasis. 
He saw, of course, the real thing, all in the 
way of livelihood; and as Jones was never a 
man to view real things in falsely-romantic 
colors (but spoke with scorn of persons who 
were "romance-mad" and "tearful" over the 
Indians), he came to know much about cattle- 
men and their ways, knew intimately the 
good and the bad, the strong and the weak, 
the wholesome and the debasing. For three 
years he was a cowboy, and a cowboy of the 
old school. He loved to recall that period. 
"I wish," he wrote, shortly before his death, 
"I wish the Plains could have remained as 
[19] 



WILLIAM JONES 



they were when I was a 'kid.' ... I went 
down into Oklahoma before leaving the States 
to take a last look. I cannot put into words 
the feeling of remorse that rose within me at 
the things I saw. The whole region was dis- 
figured with a most repelling ugliness — wind- 
mills, oil wells, wire fences, go to so and so 
for drugs, go to another for groceries and so 
on. The cowboy and the frontiersman were 
gone. The Indians were in overalls and looked 
like 'bums.' The picturesque costumes, the 
wigwams, horsemen, were things of the past. 
The virgin prairies were no more. And now 
they say that the place is a State ! Neverthe- 
less you saw the stars that I used to see. Did 
you ever behold clearer moonlight nights 
anywhere else? Did you hear the lone cry of 
the wolf and the yelp of the coyote? I wish 
you could have seen the long horn and the 
old-time punchers. The present would-be 
punchers are of a different build." 

Spring round-up in 1889 was probably the 
last at which William Jones appeared as 
active member of a cattle "outfit." He was 
then eighteen years old, had seen a great deal 
of hard work and lively adventure. Had he 
been less modest, in after years, his talk on 
these matters might have filled a book, as the 
[W] 



COWBOY 

saying goes; and even his reminiscences, rare 
and diffident though they were, disclosed to 
his friends a wealth of prairie knowledge, a 
vigorous abundant experience, beside which 
any book ever written about the West would 
appear but the thinnest kind of secondhand 
fiction. He distrusted what he called "stiff 
incidents," and shied at the telling of them; 
although once to a friend, he unfolded the 
Homeric story of a "bad man" whom he had 
known, — a fair-haired desperado, twenty years 
old, with blue eyes and the face of an inno- 
cent boy, who showed unearthly skill at mur- 
dering deputies with his pistol, carried a price 
on his head, and was killed only by a posse, 
with buckshot, through a hole in a ranch- 
house door at nightfall. Such narratives, 
however, Jones regarded as rather loud bits 
of by -play; the main scenes in his memory 
were as quiet as they were full of space, vista, 
and color. He told of daily happenings on the 
range, by the river-bottoms; the ways of cows 
and their calves; of ponies at work, of famous 
pony races — in more than one of which he had 
been chosen to ride; of curious debates among 
old frontiersmen, and quarrels which they 
sometimes averted by appealing to him as to 
one who could read and write. He knew the 
[21] 



WILLIAM JONES 

little prairie towns, and how his friends the 
" cow-punchers " took their pleasure there; 
the talk, devices and philosophy of gamblers 
in "back rooms"; the death-in-life gaiety of 
dance-halls. Through the whole miscellany 
of the plains our young cowboy rode care- 
free, seeing it all with his bright brow T n eyes, 
learning both the worse and the better side of 
mankind, getting much permanent good from 
his experiences, and singularly little harm. 
His own part in the doings of this period, he 
seldom talked about; but not because there 
was anything to conceal. His friends recall 
one story of how, on a round-up, the men had 
all risen and gone to work at dawn; how the 
camp cook, in tidying up, shook out of Billy's 
blankets a live rattle-snake, killed it, and 
when the men returned for breakfast, called 
out — "Look here, what this kid was sleeping 
with!" The episode might almost serve as a 
fable. 

"The most beautiful adventures," accord- 
ing to some writer, "are not those we go to 
seek." And now to Billy the great adventure 
of his life came of its own accord. He would 
have preferred, at that age, to go on riding the 
plains. His father, however, was a wise man 
who saw beyond the horizon of youth. In the 
[22] 



COWBOY 



autumn of 1889, Miss Folsom came from 
Virginia to visit the Sauk and Fox reserva- 
tion, and find pupils for the Hampton Insti- 
tute. The father recognized this opportunity 
for his son, took a hurried journey of twenty 
miles to find him, and next day brought him 
into the Agency. It was the turning-point of 
the boy's life; for by sunset of the next day, 
along with ten other Indian youths, William 
Jones was reluctantly speeding East to begin 
his career. 



[23] 



IV 



HAMPTON AND AND OVER 

Jones arrived at Hampton Institute on 
October 1st, 1889. He was a slender but 
manly youth, in cowboy clothes, high-heeled 
boots, and broad felt hat, with a silk hand- 
kerchief hung around his throat. From a 
picture taken at this time, his features would 
seem to have been touched with something 
of unyouthful firmness, as though rough 
weather and rough fare had matured them 
before their time. The eyes appear wistful, 
but (even by the photograph) uncommonly 
fine, and deeply alive with thought. There 
were sparks of hidden light in them, so that 
they reminded one of the clear brown water 
in a brook, with sunshine at the bottom. His 
hair had precisely the same color: it was 
brown and somewhat wavy, tinged with 
dusky but living gleams like bits of outdoor 
brightness blown into it and caught there. 

Malaria, the chills and fever of the plains, 
made him appear less rugged than he was. 
Besides malaria in his blood, William Jones 
found more subtle ingredients to contend 
[U] 



HAMPTON AND ANDOVER 



with, — youthful unrest, the roving habits of 
camp life, and the inherited love of action 
under the open sky. Indian and cowboy 
liberty maintained their spell over him. It 
was hard to be caged in a classroom, hard to 
bear anything so artificial as routine. At the 
Wabash school, he had been younger and more 
docile; now he had reached that age where 
the will is "the wind's will"; and at Hampton 
every hour was ordered and appointed: from 
the rising bell in the morning until taps at 
night, task followed task, study and work 
and drill, in a precise rotation that was sadly 
different from the old by-and-large methods 
of the Territory. His harness must have 
chafed him sore. 

Meanwhile, to fit the new life, young Jones 
had a new code of morals to formulate. This 
pagan boy, of mingled blood and mingled 
experience, had to feel and think his way 
toward spiritual manhood. A dawn of knowl- 
edge among prairie myths, three years in the 
devout Quaker family, three more with the 
cattlemen, left his mind so constituted that, 
on arriving at Hampton, he courteously but 
firmly refused the gift of a Bible, saying that 
he did not believe in it and would rather not 
take it. Gradually, he found that the whole 
[25] 



WILLIAM JONES 

question of belief could not so easily be set 
aside. The Reverend J. J. Gravatt, rector 
of St. John's in Hampton, won the boy's 
respect and confidence. At last, in his third 
year at the school, William decided to unite 
with the Episcopal church. What that deci- 
sion meant, to a shy boy who shrank in agony 
from any kind of public notice, and who had 
always eagerly hoped to regain his old free- 
dom on the plains, appears in one notable 
declaration. "I understand myself," said he, 
"and I know that I cannot live a Christian 
life out there. I will not call myself a Chris- 
tian and disgrace the name." The rite of 
confirmation was to him, in prospect, an act 
as irrevocable as that of any saint, — a re- 
nunciation of the world, the only world he 
knew and cared about. The bishop who 
confirmed him was a stranger, and after the 
service inquired about the 'youth with the 
spiritual face,' saying that he had 'never 
seen a more glorified expression on a human 
face' than the one this boy raised to him as 
he placed his hand on his head in benediction. 
No one, according to the old and hard saying, 
can save his brother's soul; no one, at all 
events, may hope to portray it; and it is 
enough to say that the boy had turned the 
[26] 



HAMPTON AND ANDOVER 



main corner safely. Succeeding years, further 
study, and intimate contact with many forms 
of belief and disbelief undoubtedly modified 
the man's convictions. We shall not spy after 
his creed, the path by which our friend went 
apart, like the old Indian at prayer, to "re- 
main silent before the Great Mystery." 

For three years Jones worked hard at his 
books, at the carpenter's bench, and on the 
school farm, showing with both head and 
hands that he possessed more than average 
ability. Each year saw him steadily advanc- 
ing. In the spring of 1892, he won the two 
senior prizes for scholarship, and was entitled 
to deliver the valedictory, — an honor which 
he declined, because, he said, he was more 
white than Indian, had at best only a fourth 
title to any such distinction, and would not 
claim that. Schoolboy honors seldom count 
for much; but seldom does a prize pupil wave 
them aside with so generous a motive. Jones 
was not a mere clever boy, the "head of the 
class" whose hand is always in the air sig- 
nalling "I know" to his teacher. Three years 
at Hampton, under good discipline, had given 
him the makings of a man. 

And now he had to form a man's decision, 
and choose a forward course. At gradua- 

[27] 



WILLIAM JONES 

tion — when he received one of the last diplo- 
mas ever signed by General Armstrong — 
William saw clearly that he must make him- 
self an exception to Hampton's rule of going 
back to his own people. All his inclinations 
pulled him to go back. His heart was with 
the plains. His judgment lay uncertainly in 
the opposite quarter. It was a choice be- 
tween the easiest way and the hardest. Our 
young graduate proved resolute in facing the 
hardest, and following it. He went north for 
the summer, to work on a farm where, at odd 
moments, he could study a little Latin and 
make himself ready to enter Phillips Andover. 
He had put behind him all chance of the old 
free life, and gathered his energy toward that 
hard-scrabble road, full of doubtful turnings, 
which we call the higher education. 

Andover he entered in the autumn of 1892. 
The school seemed at first to offer the wildest 
kind of liberty, after the strictly ordered life 
at Hampton. This liberty proved only ap- 
parent, for William soon found that his work- 
ing day was, in reality, more crowded even 
than before. His studies, also, were new and 
strange. The teachers conducted their classes 
on a different plan. "With study and tutor- 
ing," he wrote, "I do not get time for much 
[28] 



HAMPTON AND ANDOVER 



outside reading. Polycon [Political Econ- 
omy] is mighty interesting, but it requires a 
lot of time. . . . Geometry is giving me all 
kinds of tired feelings." Out of school hours, 
he had a cottage to care for, as a means 
toward the earning of his expenses. He found 
time for a little football — enough to get one 
leg slightly injured — but on the whole was 
too busy to take much play or exercise. 

"The journal letters begun at Andover," 
says the friend to whom he wrote them, 
"were his first attempt at any expression of 
himself. They began in homesickness and 
discouragement, were badly constructed and 
poorly expressed; but as the days went on, 
new experiences and new ideas crowded in, 
and in his intense desire to make another see 
and understand, he gradually formed a style 
of his own which developed into one of con- 
siderable merit." His English had always 
been full of curious idioms and the colloquial- 
isms of the West, and he was often much 
discouraged over it. "I shall always say — 
'I have went,' " he would moan; "nothing 
else will ever sound right." His own little 
turns of speech were often quaint, as when 
once he wrote, being perplexed: "I don't 
know what to do! I'm all wrapped up in a 
[29] 



WILLIAM JOXES 



fix." And when walking with a lady whose 
sash had become unfastened, the young 
scholar addressed her, with more knowledge 
of grammar than of furbelows: " Excuse me, 
but your — one of your personal endings is 
dragging on the ground." 

After his difficulties with the English lan- 
guage, William rejoiced to find that Latin 
could be "very interesting" and Greek still 
more so. In his first year at Andover, he was 
able to help other boys with their Latin; in 
his second year, and throughout the rest of 
his course, he earned part of his expenses by 
tutoring in both the classical tongues. This 
was not bad for "a little prep at Andover," 
as he afterward called himself. All four years 
were full of hard work. Now and then a let- 
ter gives a picture of schoolboy fun. "The 
dancing teacher had some girls for us yester- 
day. Oh, no, I didn't get rattled! But it was 
so much joy, though! Tell Billy [the friend 
who had given him admission to the dancing 
class, as a Christmas present] that he is the 
means of my having a mighty good time." 
Yet these light-footed interludes appear none 
too often; the boy's progress through Andover, 
though pleasant, was a steady march toward 
a serious purpose. In a brief summer visit to 
[30] 



HAMPTON AND ANDOVER 



his old home on the prairie, William had be- 
gun to see his Indian people more clearly, to 
understand their part in the general human 
situation, and to feel strongly that he must 
do something for them. Just what, he could 
not tell; but the question filled his mind, as 
when he wrote from Andover to his former 
schoolmates at Hampton: 

"We hear of Indian problems and schemes 
for solving them. Many of those who origi- 
nate these schemes are friends of the Indian, 
but know little or nothing of what he really 
needs. But we who come from the reserva- 
tions know how the Indians are living, and 
perhaps if we should try we might find some 
way of showing them how to live better. We 
do not have to do something that everyone 
will hear and praise. The greatest good will 
be done by our showing our relatives and 
neighbors how to live by doing it ourselves in 
a quiet, honest way. We should never de- 
spise them, but because we have seen and 
been taught, this should make us all the more 
willing to help them on to the better way." 

From indefinite desire to help, Jones gradu- 
ally approached a plan which seemed to con- 
tain equal promise and difficulty. He knew 
the Indians, their language and their life; now 

[31] 



WILLIAM JONES 



if he could become skilled in medicine, and 
so return to them, not only with a wider 
knowledge of modern affairs, but as a physi- 
cian, he might truly serve his own people. 
Obstacles, not a few, stood in the way of this 
project. His income barely sufficed to clothe 
him. By February of his final year at school, 
he wrote: "I have in mind now only this. I 
am going to pass my final examinations for 
Harvard. But whether I go to the Medical 
School or anywhere else is a question. If I 
could earn a scholarship or earn anything 
at Harvard I would not hesitate, but there 
seems no chance. I will not pose as an 
Indian. I will not take a cent on that score. 
It isn't fair, besides it would be uncom- 
fortable." The same spirit which prompted 
him to forego the valedictory at Hampton, now 
made him fight his own battle. It was a gal- 
lant stand for any youth to take. Being a 
white man, William Jones could accept no 
favor, allowance, or suspension of the rules; 
but he would discard no obligations, for he 
took pride in his birth among the Fox people 
and the Eagle clan. 

His problem was complicated by the fact 
that he had begun, and only begun, to dis- 
cover his real gifts. The discovery is best 
[32] 



HAMPTON AND ANDOVER 



told in the words of the person who chiefly 
brought it about: "While at Hampton, and 
later during a vacation, he had been en- 
couraged to write out and make a little study 
of his Indian language, and one day while 
visiting the Public Library in Boston was 
shown the Eliot Bible there. One of the 
librarians very kindly allowed him to look 
through it, and to his great surprise and de- 
light he found that he could read a great deal 
of it. The dialect differed from his own, but 
belonged to the great Algonkin family and 
had much in common with his own branch of 
it. The Hosford collection at Wellesley was 
brought to his attention, too, early in his 
Andover days; and many other things served 
to stimulate his natural interest in the eth- 
nology of his people." 

April, 1896, found Jones therefore in a 
quandary. Two possible careers lay before 
him, neither as yet offering more than pos- 
sibility. As to his own fitness, he felt no 
conviction or preference. Medicine appears 
to have come foremost among his thoughts, 
but only because friends were advising him 
in that direction. Dr. Bancroft, then at the 
head of Phillips Andover, had given friendly 
guidance throughout, and shown, above all, 

[33] 



WILLIAM JONES 

that he understood and properly valued his 
shy pupil. But even the weight of the 
Doctor's opinion could not settle this diffi- 
cult affair. With graduation only two months 
ahead, Jones was both anxious to decide and 
unable. "Dr. Bancroft," he wrote, "strongly 
urges me to go to Harvard, spend three years 
there for an A. B. degree, and then go to the 
Medical School. ... I can see the general 
wisdom of his plan, but my case is so peculiar, 
so different from most others. Shall I go to 
college three years and then perhaps to the 
Medical? The one sure and strong argument 
for going to college first is that I am not at all 
sure that I am going to like medicine, and 
that perhaps my ethnology work in Indian 
may suit me better." 

Time alone could show. Meanw T hile the 
boy worked steadily. Examinations ended, 
the machinery of school routine ceased run- 
ning, and Class Day approached. The close 
of his life at Andover is told in his letters: 

"... I came home about midnight, as 
near dead as I ever was, tired physically and 
mentally, for I had been up late the night be- 
fore, and early that morning, plugging Geome- 
try. My room-mate left this morning for his 
home. Gradually the boys are leaving. I'm 
[34] 



HAMPTON AND ANDOVER 



having pretty good luck disposing of the old 
things I don't want and can't take away. 
To-day was Class Day. Everything went off 
nicely, and the day was pleasant. The old 
Chapel was decorated with flowers, and the 
boys in their caps and gowns, and the fem- 
sems and other pretty girls seated in the seats 
behind them and along the sides, made the 
old Chapel look better than it ever did. I 
saw so many sisters and mothers looking on 
pleased at heart and doubtless proud of their 
sons," the motherless boy reflects. "I shall 
never forget this Commencement. . . . I don't 
know that I'll get a diploma. I hope I do. 

"It was late last night when I left off this 
letter. Since then several things have taken 
place. Commencement is over, and I have 
my Phillips diploma. I am no more a student 
here. Somehow I feel turned out, and hardly 
know where to go. This afternoon a note 
came from Cambridge telling me that I have 
assigned to me $250 from the Price Greenleaf 
Aid. That certainly gives me life enough for 
one more year, doesn't it?" 

One year in college — future enough, for 
hundreds of poor and cheerful young adven- 
turers — was future enough for Jones, as he 
put off his schoolboy cap and gown. 

[35] 



V 



SUMMER WORK 

Between Andover and Harvard there in- 
tervened a summer vacation, of which Wil- 
liam took advantage to go West, to his father's 
"prairie place." Mr. Henry Jones had re- 
ceived a commission to collect students for 
Carlisle, — in other words, to canvass not only 
his Sauk and Fox neighbors but the Kick- 
apoos, Shawnees, and other Indians near by, 
wherever he might persuade a parent to send 
a boy or a girl to this great Indian school 
in the East. William Jones, as may be 
imagined, was overjoyed at being allowed to 
join his father in the enterprise. They went 
about together, visiting the different tribes. 
It is pleasant to recall, in this relation, what 
heartily admiring terms the young man used 
when speaking of his father. "We are great 
chums." And adding a little portrait: "I 
think he has a fine head. It always reminds 
me of Julius Caesar's, but with the tenderness 
and kindness of the youthful Augustus's 
head." Then, as though afraid of having 
[36] 



SUMMER WORK 



bared his own heart, he hastens to qualify: 
"I am likely to idealize people I like." 

The pair travelled to and fro busily on their 
errand, which took them through the heat of 
Indian Territory in August, at that season 
when the sun, a sharp red orb, goes down 
through dust like the smoke of general com- 
bustion. Xo record remains of their diplo- 
macy, except a few jottings in the boy's 
diary : 

"August 13. Eagle House. Sac and Fox 
one night for two and team. 

"August 15. Kansas Sac village again. 
Met leading men. All refused. Sac village 
again. Got Leona Grey-eyes. 

"August 18. Father goes to Kickapoos. 

"August 19. Father returns — no success. 

1 1 August 22. We go to Shawnee. ... Go 
up the river to Jac. View's. Got Angela View, 
a Pottawattomie girl. 

"August 23. Kicking Kickapoos decide to 
send no children. 

"August 24. Osinakasi does not bring his 
children. 

"August 25. Sick again with malaria. . . . 
Go out after Sac girl in the afternoon. . . . 
Father returns. 2 Shawnee boys come to go 
to Carlisle." 

[37] 



WILLIAM JONES 



With this humble triumph, the diary breaks 
off. Before the end of August, having col- 
lected seven or eight young hostages to edu- 
cation, William came East with them, and 
left them at Carlisle. Of all the "sub- 
Freshmen" then travelling toward college, 
none, surely, had passed a summer more 
varied and picturesque, or had been so busy 
plucking up and transplanting the lives of 
other people. Jones himself had gained fresh 
experience, received many new impressions, 
and revised many old ones. He brought away 
some additional knowledge of the Indians and 
the plains, but above all, a profound sense of 
the changes which had swept and were still 
sweeping over the face of his native country. 
"Out on the bald prairie where I used to see 
only cattle and ponies graze," he said after- 
ward, there were fewer and fewer traces of 
the life which he had known, and which he re- 
called in all the coloring of boyhood memories. 

One remaining fixture, it appears, was 
malaria. William had fought against illness 
throughout his task as a fisher of men; and 
now when after establishing the little Indians 
at their school, he went on toward Cambridge, 
it was to the old accompaniment of chills and 
fever. 

[38] 



VI 



HARVARD 1896-97 

Jones entered Harvard College in the au- 
tumn of 1896 with a "condition" in physics 
and a temperature of one hundred and four 
degrees. "The hottest man in Cambridge," 
he called himself, in language both literal and 
figurative, for his fever had prevented him 
from removing the "condition," and so, to his 
great chagrin, had spoiled the clean slate with 
which he hoped to start. 

He had better fortune in securing his 
quarters, a room in the Yard — 26 Stoughton 
Hall — which proved so much to his liking 
that he retained it throughout his four years' 
course. Luxury, during the nineties, had not 
yet seeped through the college walls; and 
undergraduates living in the Yard still prac- 
tised the simplicity of a former generation. 
Stoughton 26, at that time, was a severe room 
on the third floor, finished in painted panels 
which gave it the air of a ship's cabin, and 
which, as on board ship, concealed many odd 
cubby-holes and lockers. As one remembers 
it, the room contained none of that demented 
[39] 



WILLIAM JONES 



multiplication of details which undergradu- 
ates then considered as decorative. It was 
always a plain study, a man's room, and like 
its occupant, made no display of Indian be- 
longings; although to a friend, at the right 
season of talk, "Billy" would produce from 
his lockers the most romantic objects, — bead- 
work, weapons, a tobacco-pouch fashioned 
from the head of a sorrel pony, all kinds of 
outdoor and wigwam things made by tribes- 
men with an eye for color. At other times 
these keepsakes remained hidden. 

Here in his room our Freshman settled 
down, like other youth, to the mixture of work 
and dreams. Work predominated, for he un- 
dertook six courses, and planned to get his 
degree in three years. Besides, there were 
term-bills to meet; and Jones, to help himself 
as far as possible, wrote from time to time 
little stories of cowboy or Indian life; not 
with much success, for we find him saying in 
discouragement: "I wish now I hadn't taken 
so many courses. It is too late to drop a 
course. Just the moment I begin a story, I 
fall behind in my work, and it is hard to catch 
up. I have material for three stories, but I 
haven't a moment to give one of them. I 
don't suppose I could get much, if anything, 
[40] 



HARVARD 1896-'97 



for any of them." Malaria played its part in 
this despondency. He adds: "I am feeling 
wretchedly to-day." 

Shortly' after "Mid-years," 1897, he found 
a new impetus and made a new friend. On 
March 6, Jones might well confide in his 
journal letter, 4 'It has been an interesting day 
to me"; for on this day he had met the man 
who opened the future to him, gave his am- 
bition its final bent, and played the part of 
destiny at a turning-point. Mr. F. W. Put- 
nam, Peabody Professor of American Archae- 
ology and Ethnology, saw at once the young 
man's capacity and unrivalled fitness for 
Indian research. "My meeting with Profes- 
sor Putnam was the very nicest talk I be- 
lieve I ever had with an elderly man, excepting 
perhaps one or two with Dr. Bancroft. He 
took me right in, and told me just exactly 
what I wanted to know without the least 
possible questioning on my part except one 
or two times. I am afraid my dreams of ever 
becoming a doctor are all thrown aside. The 
field he opened out to me is certainly wide, 
with room enough for hundreds of intelli- 
gent workers. There is an opening without 
any question, and so my little mind is sent 
drifting in another direction. What struck 
[41] 



WILLIAM JONES 



me most was the taking of courses that I 
entered upon when college opened and the 
ones I am taking now. For these were the 
very ones he suggested I must need, and then 
pointed out what others I must take next 
year, and so on. Don't you think it strange? 
My courses next year will probably be Eng- 
lish, French, German, Spanish, Anthropology, 
and perhaps early colonial history. You per- 
haps can't understand just now how these 
courses I have now fit right into those above. 
He told me to run in at any time I choose 
and see him. 'My boy, make yourself at 
home,' he said, as he laid his hand on my 
shoulder, 'and come over to the house and 
see us there.' — Our little meeting couldn't 
have been more pleasant or successful." It 
is pleasant, also, to think that the relations 
here begun continued unbroken, and that 
this teacher won his pupil's lifelong affection. 

Other letters record, at random, what 
Jones did and thought as a Freshman. His 
first year at Harvard passed quietly and, on 
the whole, happily. Studies and plans came 
foremost. "Botany is great!" he exclaimed. 
"You and I will have some fun with it, if I 
can go up to camp next summer with you." 
To a friend who sent him a box of that most 
[42] 



HARVARD 1896-'97 



Indian confection, maple sugar: "I hope," 
says he, "you won't think this is a very, very 
quick answer to your letter, but I can't re- 
sist the temptation to write just a word after 
the maple sugar box was opened. I fancy I 
see a little smile beginning. . . . ' Oh, he 
isn't going to work me for another box of 
maple sugar so easily as that!' But now 
please may I have another some time? You 
know my weakness. Nothing strengthens it 
better than maple sugar." Sometimes there 
is an echo of cowboy days. "Your quotation 
from Lamb * would lead one to think he was 
a loser at poker. One likes to hide his dirt, 
especially a poker player; so that if that was 
his trumps, he wouldn't want to 4 be called' 
for a 6 show down,' so he would pass, hand in 
his 'checks' and so lose the 'ante' and per- 
haps his bet. These are old Oklahoma phrases 
that come running back into my mind at the 
thought which your quotation stirs up; so 
don't think it's any Cambridge experience 
I'm having." Now and then, as he struggles 
with much work or his recurring fever, he 
makes characteristic apology for writing such 
idle things as letters. "Saturday evening . . * 



* Charles Lamb to Martin Burney, at whist: "If dirt was trumps, 
what a hand you'd hold!" 

[43] 



WILLIAM JONES 

I have lots and lots to do, but I'm not am- 
bitious enough for it this evening, and so this 
is one of the ways I have to rest myself. Of 
course you don't mind?" 

As his Freshman year drew toward an end, 
Jones confronted a new decision. He had 
become a member of the Boston Folk Lore 
Society, and written a few articles for the 
Folk Lore Journal. The society was now 
anxious to help in sending him West for a 
summer among the Indians, and through 
Mr. W. W. Newell, offered him $110 toward 
such an expedition. As this sum would barely 
provide for a short visit, and as Jones would 
run considerable risk of increasing his ma- 
laria, his friends who best knew the circum- 
stances counselled him to decline the offer, 
and to spend a quiet vacation camping among 
the New Hampshire lakes. Jones felt strongly 
tempted to rest; but his ambition being now 
too thoroughly awake, he could not give up 
active service. "I have you bothered very 
much," he writes to one of his advisers, "be- 
cause I am not so obedient as I might be. 
The truth is just this. Either I must drive 
everything possible in the way to the Medical 
School, and thus make it no matter of dif- 
ference whether I go West or not; or else 
[44] 



HARVARD 1896-'97 



familiarize myself with everything that is 
Indian — and the best way for this, you know, 
is to go West and be among Indians. This 
is why I have been holding off so long, and it 
is not so easy to settle yet. ... I know 
there is malaria in Oklahoma, and what not 
in Iowa, but how else am I to get these things 
without braving something unpleasant? I 
am forgetting my Sac most woefully, and by 
next year I won't be able to say hardly a 
word. ... I don't see how I deserve such 
good fortune as a real vacation, and I know I 
shall be feeling all the time that I ought to be 
working." 

These considerations carried the day. In 
the following summer (1897) William lived 
among the Sauk and Fox Indians near Tama, 
Iowa.* These people, a branch of the Ok- 
lahoma tribe, maintained their community 
apart in its ancient form, almost unaffected 
by the influence of white men. They fought 
stubbornly against all efforts of the govern- 
ment to bring their children into school, 
celebrated the tribal rites of their forefathers, 
and clung to the old language, costume, and 
tradition. Our Harvard undergraduate came 
to them in the dress and with the bearing 

* See note, page 7. 

[45] 



WILLIAM JONES 



of a white man, but they welcomed him as 
Megasiawa, the Black Eagle, to whom the 
Eagle house was open. Here, says one who 
knew both guest and hosts, he revived the 
teaching and experience of his childhood — ■ 
here he heard and spoke again for the first 
time in years the language of his Indian peo- 
ple. He knew then that he belonged to them 
and they to him. They in their turn recog- 
nized in his sympathy and respect for them 
that he was their brother. Nothing, perhaps, 
shows this more plainly to one who under- 
stands the race, than the fact that no effort 
was made to induce him to give up his "white 
man's ways" of life or thought. Instead they 
took him into their most sacred ceremonies 
just as he was, withholding nothing and de- 
manding nothing, content that with his In- 
dian heart he should keep his white man's 
head. 

For three months he lived with an old 
couple who claimed a distant kinship— only 
that kinship is never distant with an Indian. 
He watched the daily life as it went on round 
him, listened by the hour to the tales the old 
men were glad to tell him, and in return im- 
pressed upon them by life as well as by 
speech, the advantages of education, showing 

[46] 



HARVARD 1896-'97 



them how to improve their farms and homes, 
and urging them, with some success, to send 
their children to school. 

Passages here and there in Jones's letters 
hint at the variety, as well as some of the 
difficulty, in his life among the summer 
lodges. 

"Tama. August 15, 1897. I am waiting 
for the Thanksgiving dance, which is to come 
off soon. The Indians have been holding 
their preparatory feastings, prayers, and sing- 
ing. When all the gens have done this, then 
the dance will come off. 

"The circus came, and I took Patoka and 
George to it. The old man was more than 
delighted, and it would have done your heart 
good to see his pleasant face beaming with 
pleasure. I'm going to see him this after- 
noon and talk it over with him. 

"You will be glad to know that I have gone 
so far without eating dog." 

Of all that Jones saw and learned during 
this visit, the real core and significance re- 
main a secret. The Iowa Foxes initiated him 
into many ancient mysteries of their religion, 
which have never been disclosed to a white 
man. Jones committed to paper an account 
of these, with sketches, diagrams, and the 

[47] 



WILLIAM JONES 

full interpretation which probably no other 
man could have supplied. The document he 
then sealed. It will not be opened until the 
older Indians have gone to their fathers, 
taking their lore with them. 

For the present, and for his own purposes, 
William found that his summer's work bore 
two unmistakable results. He had learned 
first that his Indian people — whose claims on 
him he had never forgotten — admitted gladly 
his claims on them: and second, that his 
whole life from childhood had formed a con- 
tinuous training, the purpose of which ap- 
peared too manifest to be ignored. How best 
to fulfil this purpose, the young man could 
not as vet see clearlv. But when in the 
autumn he turned East again, to begin the 
second year at Harvard, he knew that hence- 
forth his studies would not lead toward 
medicine. He should return to the Indians 
not as a healer, but as the historian of their 
legends, the recorder of their language, and 
the interpreter of their most reverent beliefs. 



[48] 



vn 



HARVARD 1897-98 

"College days/' at their wildest, are 
never quite so gay as they are painted, or 
at their other extreme so dull. The college 
days of a man who foresees their outcome, 
and turns them toward it with any constancy, 
often appear to him the happiest chapter in 
his life. The class-room, the laboratory 
bench, the late hours beside the green lamp, 
are all movements in a campaign; and even 
where no open battle is offered, he remains 
continually scouting and skirmishing, testing 
his own forces in minor engagements, winning 
humble heights, or at least discovering some 
of the masked batteries against which he must 
presently march. To him it is all pith and 
moment; but generally, and often in the same 
proportion as he becomes victor, the history 
of his operations will contract into a small 
page. Strangers, or even his friends, see only 
the main route he has traversed; his alarms 
and excursions leave no trace on the map; 
and when he has won his destination, he 
[49] 



WILLIAM JONES 



seems to have made a plain journey, leg over 
leg, as the dog went to Dover. 

It would be doing the memory of William 
Jones a poor service, to present him as a 
young man engrossed in the details of his 
own career. For one who worked so hard 
and well, he left an uncommon amount of 
space clear for friendship, fun, and human 
by-play. The letters already quoted will have 
falsified the man, indeed, if while they state 
in his own words the motives for a given 
decision, or carry his own narrative past a 
given point, they shall have pictured him as 
knitting his brows in self-absorption. His 
doubts and troubles he wrote down only when 
a friend had the right to know them. Happy 
at some good fortune, he turned quickly to 
share it in a letter. But the living man whom 
written words cannot recapture, — the man 
with whom one talked, sitting on a window- 
seat or walking in the open — was the most 
restful and refreshing of companions. He 
could throw off all shadow of work, to 
bask in wholesome idleness. With slow, quiet 
words, and bits of tranquil gesture, he would 
discuss any subject but his own affairs. And 
at that period of life, when youth is most 
busily competing for the future or playing its 

[50] 



HARVARD 1897-'98 



private Hamlet, " Billy" Jones could lead 
an undergraduate dialogue farther afield, 
and invigorate it with more manly humor, 
than any of us knew the secret of doing. 
"Lead" is a mistaken term: rather, he en- 
ticed our talk along with a word or a smile 
now and then; listened, agreed or disagreed 
shyly; often did no more than look on, his 
brown eyes lighted with a curious twinkle, 
which we in our immaturity let pass, but 
which now returns full of meaning. 

In his letters, and in them not often, he told 
of his own work and perplexity. "I am fear- 
fully rushed now," he wrote, during his second 
year at Harvard. "I am not so sure about 
my six courses as ... at the beginning. 
Anthropology now is decidedly slow and 
stupid. I can't tell whether it is hard or easy, 
because I am not sure what it is driving at. 
I devote two or three hours a week to work- 
ing up the notes of my summer's work, with 
Dixon. He is more than interested, and 
thinks the material in every way good." As 
may be imagined, Jones had great store of 
experience to draw upon for his work in 
English composition. "I have a fortnightly 
theme here . . . that was handed me to 
revise. The critic seems to think I can write 
[51] 



WILLIAM JONES 

a story if I try very hard. I wrote a de- 
scription one day, 6 A Round-Up on the 
Plains/ and the instructor told me to keep 
to such subjects, for that was almost half 
the theme. . . . One or two on Exposition 
and Argument, and then will come a theme 
on any subject we may want, — Western 
story, Indian story, Love story, Blood, or 
any other subject. I wish I knew some love 
plot to work up. Indian stories are too stale 
for me now, particularly after I get done with 
this week's folklore writing. ... I handed 
in a thesis in my History X course yesterday 
on the Indian population, so that I am dead 
sick of Indian just at present." Respite was 
denied, evidently, for elsewhere he complains 
that he must "get to writing something for 
the Folk Lore Club, which has been chasing 
me for the last two months for something 
about poor Lo." Attacks came from unex- 
pected quarters, and took his few spare mo- 
ments. "A is again in this part of the 

country. He dropped into my room to ask 
me to join his * Aboriginal Society for the 
Advancement of the Indian Race.' I told 
him I was flat broke, so that ended that. I 
didn't know it before, but it seems that there 
is a time when it is a good thing to be broke, 
[52] 



HARVARD 1897-'98 



and this was one of them." Worse than all, 
the bugbear of public speaking began to rear 
its head before him. An audience of listeners 
was, of all things, the one for which Jones had 
least liking. 4 'When there are so many men 
who want to talk," he once lamented, "why 
can't they let a man who w T ants to keep still, 
alone?" That they would not, many pas- 
sages attest. "The Harvard Folk Lore Club 
wishes me to read a paper before it. Holy 
Smoke! I put them off. . . . Mr. Newell 
sent me word that he wanted me to deliver a 
lecture. ... I think I see myself speak- 
ing!" As early as November, 1897, he was 
forced to consent, and "give a talk. ... It 
will be on ideas of death, the soul, etc., but 
there will be a discussion of general things. . . . 
I haven't had time to work up my notes. 
That will be my Christmas vacation work." 

Apart from these troubles, Jones led a quiet 
life at college. Athletics of the usual sort he 
was debarred from, not only by his work, but 
also by the injury received in playing foot- 
ball at Andover. "My leg is bothering me 
again," he writes; certain ligaments had been 
torn, "and now I believe the bone is injured. 
It doesn't trouble me to walk, but just let me 
try to run, and you see me go off on one leg." 
[53] 



WILLIAM JONES 



His lameness gradually wore away, for later 
he was able to say — "An hour every day in 
the gym and a half-mile run round the track, 
is the limit of my exercise now. It will be 
increased as time goes on." He took care 
after this fashion to keep himself in good 
physical trim; often went to church on foot, 
eight miles to Boston and back; and some- 
times played truant, stealing a winter holiday 
on the eve of examinations: — "I have been 
working so hard that I got where I could 
not sleep. This morning I got Charles, 
and we walked all the morning as fast 
as we could out through Allston and round 
by Belmont and over the hills behind Cam- 
bridge. We got back at one, in time for 
luncheon. I came over to my room and went 
straight to bed, just as if it were eleven 
o'clock at night, and slept till five." At an- 
other time, with another friend, Jones made 
a significant little pilgrimage, honoring the 
memory of the Apostle to the Indians: — 
"We took a beautiful walk out to John 
Eliot's grave, the little town and the site of 
his church and home." 

The life thus pieced together reveals a 
pattern sober enough, even for the busiest of 
undergraduates, — a tame pattern, surely, to 
[54] ' 



HARVARD 1897-'98 



one who had lived as a plainsman. The 
scholar's gown would show dismally beside a 
cowboy's trappings or an Indian's blanket. 
Jones was none the less happy, and indeed, 
was never touched by the common under- 
graduate discontents. "Here I am," he 
wrote, as a Freshman, "here I am at Harvard, 
where a man is measured for what he is, and 
not for what society has made him." Through 
his four years there, and through the nine 
remaining years of his life, he felt for the 
college a sentiment unknown to care-free or 
sophisticated youths. Homesick he proba- 
bly was, with a mind so fond of dwelling on a 
past so different; but of homesickness there 
are only hints. "To-day," he notes, during 
a lonely Christmas recess in Cambridge, "I 
stopped at a book store and saw a book of 
drawings by Frederic Remington. I fell in 
love with it on the spot, but it had a price 
beyond my reach. There are so many things 
in that book that bring back to me a thou- 
sand reminiscences of the days before I was 
brought east." 

It is droll to consider that this young man, 
who had known hardship and danger, and was 
at bottom the soul of quiet courage, could be 
as timid as a boy. Once, while at college, 
[55] 



WILLIAM JONES 

Jones found to his dismay that he must pay 
a call, and face no less dreadful creature than 
a girl. This, apparently, was worse than pub- 
lic speaking. He hated the necessity, and 
put it off. At last he called; to his relief, 
present fears proved less than horrible imagin- 
ings; and there followed one of his first essays 
on the method of womankind. " She has a 
nice little way of breaking in, when you tell 
her anything that interests her, and will go 
on by herself. She makes these little side 
tracks so interesting that you almost forget 
what you meant to tell her, and behold you 
find that both are talking about something 
entirely different. Thus we found that an 
hour and a half had gone by." 

Bashful in all such matters, Jones could be 
ready enough upon occasion. And now an 
occasion drew near, with the spring of 1898. 
Men who were at Harvard during that spring 
term, remember well the great wave of excite- 
ment which came flooding into college, and 
swamped all personal or academic questions. 
At first, as we hurried to late breakfast in 
Memorial Hall, there came the news that the 
' 'Maine" was sunk in Havana harbor. The 
fact stared out from black headlines on the 
newspaper stall, which stood in the transept, 
[56] 



HARVARD 1 897-'98 



directly under the torn battle flags of an 
earlier generation. Before many days, the 
black letters grew larger and larger. The 
spring winds — to judge by the rumors they 
brought — all blew from Cuba. And by the 
time that the young apple trees behind Grays 
were white with blossoms, the country had 
rushed into war. We all forgot our books. 
Lecturers forgot to lecture, and talked to us 
like Dutch uncles. Professors of psychology, 
of history, of literature, urged us to keep cool, 
saying in chorus: "Don't enlist! This war 
will be either short or long. If short, you 
would be raw recruits, a needless trouble and 
expense; if long, — wait, and drill!" It was 
good advice, but youth will be served with 
other doctrine. Awkward squads — some of 
the awkwardest ever formed — already were 
tramping all day long behind the gymnasium. 
A '95 man opened a recruiting office, into 
which went undergraduates, and out of which 
came Rough Riders, whose story is told else- 
where. Various men left college for the war, 
some of them never to come back. Flags 
appeared in the Yard, hanging from the 
window of this or that study, wherever a 
room-mate had gone. 

The outbreak stirred and shook us all. 
[57] 



WILLIAM JONES 

Jones, like many others, had seen it coming 
far ahead. "Perhaps," he had written in 
February, "the war cloud will roll over, but 
if anything does come like war I may want 
to go into the army. There is nothing serious 
in this last; it is only a dream, which might 
be realized in case war does come. I haven't 
told anyone else." The cloud grew, however, 
and spread nearer. "If I am needed, and can 
be of any use, as I told you before, I want 
to go into the army. It will be hard of course 
to leave the pleasant life of a great university, 
much harder still to leave friends; but the 
words of General Armstrong come into your 
soul, 'Put God and Country first and your- 
self afterward.' " By April, the question 
absorbs all his thought. "I feel the country 
has done a disgraceful thing to plunge into 
this war, but I haven't the heart to remain 
comfortably here without doing something to 
help get her out of the trouble she is in. . . . 
This is the hardest thing I ever tried to do." 
Within three days, the decision became still 
harder. To the same lifelong friend, who had 
undertaken his education, and helped him 
at every turning, Jones wrote as follows: 
"Mr. Roosevelt has sent word that he wants 
ten Harvard men to be with him in his troops 

[58] 



HARVARD 1897-'98 



of cowboy cavalry. Men have come to see if I 
would go." He tells how he seized the chance, 
and continues: "I do feel it my duty to 
go. . . . If any cavalry troops are to see 
righting, these cowboy regiments will see 
it. . . . You have prepared opportunities 
for me to see noble and beautiful ideals. I 
have thus far enjoyed innumerable blessings 
and have gained a host of friends ... all 
these things only through you. So I ask you 
as the same good and brave mother that you 
have always been to me, to let me go into 
this war. If I come out alive you will be 
prouder and all the happier because I fol- 
lowed what I thought was my duty to my 
country. . . . You, perhaps, may realize what 
thoughts come through my mind as I think 
of being in these troops of cowboys. I would 
thousands of times rather be with those fellows 
than in any regiments of college men." 

With all these motives, and more which we 
may only guess, Jones did not go to the war. 
He stayed at home and went about his 
work, — an infinitely harder course to follow, 
but a course which he felt he could not desert 
with honor. He stayed, recognizing a fact 
which more than one young man of courage 
has overlooked, that his life and even his 
[59] 



WILLIAM JONES 



bravest desires are not always at his own 
disposal. The early summer of 1898 Jones 
spent at Hampton, where he saw the trans- 
ports come back to Old Point Comfort, bring- 
ing sick and wounded men. "Among them," 
says a friend who was with Jones at this 
time, 4 4 was a classmate, a splendid, handsome 
fellow who, racked with pain and hardly ex- 
pecting to live until his family could reach 
him, said, 'I tell you, Billy, it has paid.' 
This made a deep impression upon Will, and 
he felt he would gladly have changed places, 
just for the glory of it. ..." One day, 
reading a list of the dead and wounded, he 
looked up at the friend who knew what an 
ordeal he had passed, and said, "There, but 
for you, might be William Jones." He paused, 
and added, "I almost wish it were." And 
afterward in Cambridge, as he and the same 
friend were passing the soldiers' tablets in 
Memorial Hall, he asked, with a laugh: "Do 
you realize, — that for you I gave up my only 
chance for fame ? " 

Had he foreseen, he might not have spoken 
so. The close of his life showed — what we all 
knew — that he could stay in his duty without 
considering danger or renown. 



[60] 



VIII 



HARVARD 1898-1900 

During his four years at Harvard College, 
Jones became a member of the Signet, Folk 
Lore, Andover, and Hasty Pudding clubs, 
wrote articles and stories — "Frederic Rem- 
ington's Pictures of Frontier Life," "Anoska 
Nimiwina, a legend of the Ghost Dance," "A 
Lone Star Ranger," and other pieces — for 
The Harvard Monthly; became an editor of 
that magazine in 1899-1900; won the Harvard 
Advocate Scholarship *'for excellence in Eng- 
lish Composition"; was twice appointed Win- 
throp Scholar; and at the last, won honorable 
mention in American Archaeology. 

Other youths have done as much or more. 
The list of achievements — good in any case, 
and strange enough as sequel to that boyhood 
in Katiqua's wigwam — may briefly certify 
that Jones worked his way through college 
with more than average distinction. It is not 
what his friends remember best. As there 
pass, in the review of memory, the crowds of 
men whom one has seen at college, many of 
the most conspicuous among these will take a 
[61] 



WILLIAM JONES 



transitory shape, and reappear but as men 
pressing on to succeed, — cloaked already with 
success, and muffling their other aspects and 
lineaments; only here and there a man re- 
turns as he was, familiar, complete, clear, his 
face still the face of youth. This remains the 
man we knew; as though our last talk to- 
gether had been yesterday, or all the missing 
letters had gone back and forth for years. 
We have not met since, but there is no change ; 
here stays our friend. 

It was always so with "Billy." Hard- 
working and competent though he was, he 
reappears not like one of those half-hidden 
figures in transit, but with his old presence, 
the kindliest and most likable of boys. As 
he crossed the Yard, when the bell rang and 
crowds filled every path, there was little in- 
deed to single him out from the rest of us. 
One friend who came to know him only in 
Senior year, had often seen his active, muscu- 
lar figure, and without having heard his name, 
had remarked the face as uncommonly full of 
character. It seemed a Celtic face to this 
passer-by, who may have gathered his im- 
pression from some Welsh trait. Of " Billy's" 
Indian blood one never thought, and seldom 
was reminded, even on close acquaintance. 
[62] 



HARVARD 1898-1900 



Those wonderful brown eyes of his were not 
the eyes of a modern white man; they con- 
tained more depth, distance, meditation, and 
(especially when you came toward him un- 
perceived) were like Indian eyes in their ex- 
pression of steady sadness. To meet them, 
was to know that this young man observed 
closely, felt strongly, thought much, and kept 
results to himself. 

Jones was, above all, an observer. His 
prairie training had given him the habit of 
seeing, and his sight was very keen. I re- 
member that once, as we came back together 
from a long winter walk, he suddenly peered 
ahead through the dusk, saying — "There's a 
cat in that tree." The tree stood across a 
wide road, against the blackness of a field, so 
that — to me at least — the very branches made 
little more than a conjectural mass. Any 
cat there would be like the "black cat in a 
dark cellar" of metaphysics. Billy's remark 
seemed to be either pretence, or the prologue 
to some mysterious trick. We went under- 
neath the tree, and stood on a fence, before I 
could see what he had seen from the dis- 
tance, — a cat lying flattened along one of the 
dark boughs. 

On another evening, between late spring 
[63] 



WILLIAM JONES 

and early summer, we happened to cross the 
Yard from Stoughton toward Sever Hall, 
when a slight rustle in the foliage called our 
attention overhead to the top branches of an 
elm. Something black flitted through pieces 
of starlight, and vanished among leaves. I 
guessed at a bird, and should have thought no 
more about it. "Wait," said Billy. "That's 
an owl. He's flown into the ivy on Uni- 
versity." Sure enough, the ampelopsis cover- 
ing the front of that building began violently 
to shake in patches, as though Minerva's bird 
were trying to find a perch in the Faculty 
Room. "He's after young sparrows," Billy 
explained, even before the noise reached us, 
or the squeaking of tiny victims among the 
vines. He had foreseen the whole transaction 
in the dark. 

His past life made him all the better com- 
pany, because the moments when he spoke 
of it were moments of perfected friendship. 
Also, at this period, it gave sometimes an un- 
expected turn to events. A small band of us, 
now widely scattered, amused ourselves by 
walking to town, dining in some smoky den, 
and walking roundabout again to Cambridge. 
Once, during a night's entertainment of this 
sort, we happened to pass a miserable little 

[64] 



HARVARD 1898-1900 



1 1 museum/ ' by the door of which stood one 
dressed as an Indian, in fringed buckskin, 
with long hair flowing on his shoulders. 

" Go in," said somebody, "and talk to him, 
Billy." 

Our friend demurred, but presently ap- 
proached the grimy fraud, and spoke in an 
unknown tongue. He gave the good old-time 
western greeting, — a request for a chew of 
tobacco. 

"Aw," replied he of the buckskin, "I don't 
remember none o' that stuff — been too long- 
East here." 

"Perhaps," Billy suggested, "we don't 
speak the same language." 

"That's it, I guess." The other visibly 
snatched at this relief. 

"What was your Agency?" 

"Pine Ridge." 

"Oh," said our spokesman. "Then" — and 
readily addressed himself as to a Sioux. 

The man fidgetted under his fringes, and 
again pleaded his long residence in the East. 
We had turned away, when one of our party, 
who had missed the dialogue, asked if the fel- 
low was really an Indian. 

"I don't know: he may be," answered 
Billy, in his charitable fashion; and then, by 

[65] 



WILLIAM JONES 



an afterthought, stepped back into the gaudy 
entrance of the museum. Speaking in Eng- 
lish, and with a manner of great courtesy, he 
let fall a few innocent-seeming words. 

"That so?" replied the buckskin man, well 
pleased. 

Jones came out and rejoined us, laughing. 

"If that fellow had been an Indian," he 
explained, "there'd have been a fight." 

Besides enlivening the dullest of streets with 
such episodes, Jones could find means of 
breaking for us, as nobody else could, the 
deplorable regularity of things at college. 
On a fine afternoon, for example, when noth- 
ing clouded the June sky except a shadow of 
approaching examinations, he might appear 
with a proposal to go behind the scenes at 
Buffalo Bill's. We were not long in accept- 
ing. Three of us — it may suggest something 
of the variety in Billy's friendships, to say 
that one of the three is now a captain of 
artillery, another a surgeon at the head of a 
children's hospital — three of us went with 
him into the green-room of the Wild West 
show, a green-room open to the sky, car- 
peted with trampled grass, and crowded with 
dressing-tents, horses and harness, Cossacks, 
gatlings, buffaloes, Indians, and Rough Riders 
[66] 



HARVARD 1898-1900 

whom Jones had known in "the Territory." 
Here we sat atop the Deadwood Coach, be- 
hind the canvas screen of the arena, and felt 
the bird-shot hopping on our hats as Miss 
Oakley and the great Baker shivered glass 
balls in air with their rifles. Here we met 
cowboys who welcomed us, in part as Billy's 
friends, in part because they had fought 
alongside Harvard men at San Juan. Mc- 
Ginty, rider of the bucking horses, treated us 
most handsomely on Billy's account. Horses 
were put at our disposal, both in joke and in 
earnest. A great many feathered Indians 
were standing around, aloof and silent. Some- 
body proposed going up to them and opening 
talk. "No," answered Billy, with unusual 
curtness; then made the same objection that 
he once offered to the late Mr. Remington's 
Hiawatha pictures: "They're all Sioux." 
Through friendship with the driver, we be- 
came passengers in the Deadwood Coach, and 
when our turn came, trundled into the arena 
past a long line of mounted Sioux, painted in 
wild colors, grinning viciously, and each man 
patting the revolver on his hip to give us a 
foretaste. The band struck into The Arkan- 
saw Traveler, the eight mules into a full 
gallop. After one unmolested circuit, we 
[67] 



WILLIAM JONES 



heard a "Yi-yi-yip!" from behind the canvas, 
and saw the varicolored ponies, bodies, and 
tossing feathers of the Sioux burst forth from 
cover. A cowboy, sitting inside with us, 
pumped his Winchester out at them, but they 
swooped alongside yelling, and fired blank 
cartridges through the window close enough 
to burn our cheeks. One yellow-painted sav- 
age, on a white pony, had a sharp wooden 
spear, used in a former "act" to prod buffalo 
with. This he jabbed into the coach, hitting 
our future surgeon accurately in the deltoid 
muscle. "Hi yi!" cried the Sioux, at every 
jab. "Hi yi!" cried the surgeon, doubling 
into a ball in the farthest corner. When the 
flurry was over, somebody asked — "What 
were you saying 'Hi yi' for, Nat?" — "I 
couldn't think," was the answer, "of any other 
remark!" This quaint confession seemed to 
give Billy more delight than anything else in 
our afternoon performance. 

Intermissions like this were not frequent. 
Our college working-days followed each other 
in an even round. Jones was busier and 
steadier with his books than the rest of us, 
and accomplished a great deal more. His 
free moments he passed in various quiet 
ways, — walking, reading, discussing books or 

[68] 



HARVARD 1898-1900 



life at large with the other editors of his col- 
lege magazine, or perhaps guiding a few mem- 
bers of the Carlisle football team (when they 
visited Cambridge for a game) to the house 
where the author of Hiawatha lived. Though 
fonder of listening than of talking, Billy told 
stories admirably; indeed, his love of story- 
telling came by inheritance; and sometimes — 
not to any but close friends — he would unfold 
narratives of former days out West, using in 
the Indian mode a slow and eloquent gesture 
in place of adjective or verb. To one man 
of his college acquaintance, he explained the 
language of signs, so that, meeting in the 
Yard, they two might amuse themselves by a 
secret conversation without words. 

In the summer vacation of 1899, Jones re- 
visited his birthplace. He made but a short 
stay, for Oklahoma was at its hottest, and his 
old fever threatened to return. He suffered 
not only from lassitude but from disillusion. 
"I'm going to get out as soon as I can," he 
writes in August. "It's too hot, and there is 
too much malaria. Indians don't look like 
Indians any more. When I went away they 
used to look so well in their Indian costumes; 
but now they are like tramps in trousers and 
overalls which they don't know how to wear. 
[69] 



WILLIAM JONES 



Indian women are better looking because they 
have not changed their dress so much." 

Senior year at college, beginning soon after, 
passed quickly and happily. In June, 1900, 
Jones was graduated from Harvard, and by the 
middle of July was taking a well-earned holi- 
day in the White Mountains. His immediate 
future lay straight before him. He had sub- 
mitted to the Secretary of Columbia Univer- 
sity an application for a scholarship, by aid 
of which he could hope to proceed as a grad- 
uate student. Indian ethnology was to be his 
subject, and Professor Franz Boas his chief 
instructor. His good friend Professor Putnam 
transmitted the application to the Secretary 
with the following letter: 

"Harvard University, 

"Cambridge, Mass., July 12, 1900. 
"Dear Sir: 

"Mr. William Jones has been a student of 
good standing, and he received his A. B. this 
year. He has taken courses in American 
Archaeology and Ethnology during the past 
three years, including one year's work in my 
Research Course, when he made a study of 
and wrote a thesis on the Massachusetts In- 
dians. Mr. Jones came to Harvard from the 

[70] 



HARVARD 1898-1900 



Indian School at Hampton, where he won the 
esteem of his teachers, who have continued 
to take an interest in his work. He has had 
to work his way through college with such 
assistance as he has received. For two years 
he held the Winthrop Scholarship in this 
Department, and he received a prize from 
Harvard for English Composition. 

44 He is certainly worthy of holding a 
Scholarship at Columbia, and I sincerely 
hope it will be bestowed upon him that he 
may continue his chosen research under 
Dr. Boas. 

"Yours very truly, 
"(Signed) F. W. Putnam." 

Recommended thus, as well as by his own 
record, Jones entered Columbia University in 
the succeeding autumn, and was appointed 
President's University Scholar during his 
first year of graduate study. 



[71] 



IX 



LIFE IN NEW YORK 

In June, 1901, Jones received from Co- 
lumbia the degree of A. M.; in July, an ap- 
pointment as University Fellow in Anthro- 
pology for the ensuing year. Meantime, 
Dr. Boas (then head of the Department of 
Anthropology at the American Museum of 
Natural History) had obtained for Jones a 
commission to carry on field work in the 
West. This work, which was to occupy the 
summer months of 1901, consisted of "lin- 
guistic and ethnological investigations among 
the Sac and Fox Indians, and if circumstances 
should demand, among closely allied tribes." 
The Museum provided part of the necessary 
funds, the National Bureau of Ethnology 
furnished the remainder. "In your work," 
Jones's appointment read, "you will en- 
deavor to collect as much information as 
possible on the language and customs of the 
Sac and Fox, and obtain as many specimens 
as you can illustrating the ethnology of the 
people. Your collections are to be sent 

[78] 



LIFE IN NEW YORK 



to . . . the American Museum of Natural 
History." 

Jones lost no time in starting for his field. 
The ink which enrolled him as Master of 
Arts was hardly dry, before he had settled 
among his former friends, the Iowa Foxes. 
From Tama, Iowa, he wrote in June: 

"I am writing this on my knee just outside 
an Indian summer lodge. The time is about 
half past six of a Sunday morning. I have not 
had my breakfast yet. The breakfast, how- 
ever, is cooking. One reason why I am up so 
early is because I have not yet become used 
to the smoke in my eyes. The women are the 
early risers. They make the fire, and while 
the men sleep are preparing breakfast. Isn't 
that fine? But the women enjoy it, and why 
shouldn't they be let to do what pleases 
them? 

"How many people can you count on your 
fingers who have written you before break- 
fast? You deserve a nice long letter, but I 
am not promising one here for several rea- 
sons. In the first place, I hear the clank of 
dishes and the rattle of pans and spoons and 
knives and forks, and I know not what minute 
I may be called to come and eat. Again, the 
men and boys are rising, and it won't be long 
[73] 



WILLIAM JONES 



before some one or many will be looking over 
my shoulders to see what manner of marks I 
may be making on this paper. You know 
yourself such is not conducive to an easy 
letter." 

For letters, indeed, the young scientist now 
found little time. He was " not always where 
there is a post-office at hand"; he lived amid 
the interruptions, the coming and going, the 
visits and discussions of an Indian neighbor- 
hood; and waiting on the moods of this chief 
or that medicine man, he could never choose 
his own time to begin work or to break off. 
We may picture him as sitting beside some 
red kinsman, asking and answering questions, 
exchanging confidence, and seizing every pro- 
pitious moment to hear the ancient stories 
told. These were the tales of his grandmother 
Katiqua's people, from remote generations. 
Xo man could understand or record them so 
fully and truly as Katiqua's grandson. But 
the interpreter, though perfect and unfailing, 
could not command the living sources of 
legend to flow at his own pleasure. A tale, 
well begun, might stop again and again at the 
caprice of daily events. Letters describing 
these interruptions, or a journal with the 
barest jottings of them, would in part repay 

[71] 



LIFE IX NEW YORK 



us for the loss they caused. Even to his best 
friends, however, Jones could send only a 
chance message. "I began this letter on a 
Friday, and now it is Monday. I am on a 
long Indian story, and am writing you this 
when my informant is not at hand." "The 
character of my work," he explains elsewhere, 
"is such that I have to keep at it, though 
many times it is barren of results." 

The summer expedition was, in the main, 
highly successful. From the Iowa Foxes, 
Jones went to his native prairie in Oklahoma, 
where he not only levied further scientific 
tribute among his relatives, but enjoyed far 
better health and spirits than during his visit 
of two years before. He lived, for part of the 
time, in the lodge of an old Indian who 
claimed a double kinship by marriage and 
tribal adoption, and who could impart much 
hereditary lore. To the young man's delight 
he was given the use of a fine pony, — a pony 
famous through no mean exploit, for it had 
led the great Oklahoma rush over thirty miles 
of wild riding. Jones often sang the praises of 
this mount. Meanwhile, he enjoyed his work 
and did it well. In August he wrote: "I am 
expecting to be in the field until the 20th of 
September, perhaps later. I have gathered a 
[75] 



WILLIAM JONES 



heap of stories in the Indian language, and 
that means a pile of work for me this winter 
when it comes, to get them ready for the 
Government to publish. . . . Malaria has 
not got hold of me, . . . but then I am not 
going to play with fate, for the game is not 
over yet." 

Jones returned well and sunburnt to New 
York in the autumn, and changed himself 
back from plainsman and Indian to Uni- 
versity Fellow at Columbia. His quarters he 
took up in Lenox Avenue "not very near 
Columbia," as he said, "and a long way from 
the Museum; but I have a good room to sleep 
in, and a good table to eat from, and so am 
quite contented with my lot." 

In November he joined the Harvard Club, 
where, a few weeks later, he helped to give "a 
reception to our victorious football eleven . . . 
and a merry time we had of it. I met in with 
a lot of fellows I know." His friends in New 
York, it would appear, saw more of Jones 
throughout the winter than before, although 
he was busier than ever. "I have been work- 
ing away like a Trojan," he writes in Decem- 
ber, "preparing a paper to be read next week 
at Chicago, where a host of scientific men 
meet. Its subject is — Customs and Rites 
[76] 



LIFE IN NEW YORK 



Concerning the Dead among the Sauk and 
Foxes. One of my Columbia professors is to 
read it; 'owing to unavoidable circumstances 
the author cannot be present,' etc. The man 
is tickled over the part I have shown him, and 
he thinks it will do. — Christmas Day was a 
quiet one for me. I loafed in my room during 
the morning, and in the afternoon I went to 
the Museum of Art to feast my eyes and de- 
light my aesthetic sense. In the evening I 
went to dine with a college class-mate of 
mine. . . . His family are in New York 
now; they are from an old Virginia line, and 
they are very nice. They interest me very 
much. . . . About the dinner, — it was de- 
liciously good to eat, and I ate till I had a 
goodly fill and was as contented as a well-fed 
broncho. — I must tell you I've just finished 
writing my 'speech.' They won't hear my 
little bleat, but they will catch the idea of it. 
I am doing a pile of work this recess." 

While Jones was thus employed, a great 
happiness had befallen him. His friends noted 
the effect, without guessing the cause, until 
six months later he told them of his engage- 
ment to Miss Caroline Andrus, of Hampton, 
Virginia. From now on, his labors had a new 
enthusiasm and a new purpose; and though 

[77] 



WILLIAM JONES 



fate cut them short, we know what happy 
devotion sent him on, like the Greek hero, to 
things "higher and harder." 

"Busy!" he exclaimed, with gusto, in a 
letter written shortly after New Years: "I 
am up to my ears in work! But I can go at 
it with a vim. ... I am up here at the 
Library [of Columbia], busy over the trans- 
lation of the Sauk and Fox tales that must be 
done before many months roll round. I am 
planning to do one story every day. Besides 
the tales there is the ethnological material 
that must be written up too." Thus the win- 
ter passed, day after day of hard study and 
application, though not without some variety, 
or some chance, now and then, of seeing an 
old friend or making a new. 

"February 6, 1902. A week from Monday 
night I am going down to a Mission on the 
East Side and talk to a men's club. Morrow 
and I have a friend who does church work in 
that section. The man's name is Paine. He 
is a Harvard man of the class of '97. He 
wants me to tell about the West, cowboys 
and Indians. The more graphic and exciting 
the better, he says. There will be about 
twenty-five men. ... I have done several 
talks this year, and am getting lots of the 

[78] 



LIFE IN NEW YORK 



'scare' and ' fear' driven out of me. But my 
knees are pretty limber yet, and my voice 
insists on clinging deep down in my bosom. 

"February 18. You should have heard me 
last night making my 'speech!' I told the 
man in charge I would try to last half an hour, 
and what do you think! It was an hour be- 
fore I got warmed up, and the room was as 
still as death, with the eyes of the men and 
boys riveted on me. When I let up, the men 
fired questions at me in a way as if they had 
been really entertained. I was told after- 
ward that it is seldom anyone has been able 
to keep the boys as still as that. I told them 
about cowboys and Indians, and livened up 
the thing with a stiff incident here and there, 
and I suppose that that was what took. 

"March 12. This morning I have devoted 
to an Indian story, translating it into read- 
able English. ... I went to the Princeton 
Club for dinner, and later to the Sportsman's 
Show. I had a good meal at the former, and 
was very much amused and entertained at 
the latter. The Indians at the show simply 
go through stunts like children who are in the 
game for the fun there is in it. I go down 
town again this evening. This time it is to 
the Academy of Sciences, to hear W talk 

[79] 



WILLIAM JONES 



on the Condition of the Indians. I hope to 
see some one there whom I know and who 
will know the speaker, because I should 
like to have words with him for about one 
minute. 

"March 13. I heard W last night, 

and after the talk was introduced to him. 

Dr. B introduced me, and you will smile 

at the exchange of words and moods. It was 
something like this: 

"Dr. B . 'Mr. W , let me intro- 
duce Mr. Jones.' 

"Mr. W , with a dead man's look of 

indifference — 'Glad to meet you.' Then he 
looks away and half turns round with ribs 
toward introduced. 

"Dr. B . 'Mr. Jones, you know, is the 

Sauk and Fox who ' 

"Mr. W spins round with face full of 

surprise. He grabs hand of introduced, and 
with a tight prolonged squeeze exclaims — 
'Oh! Oh! Yes! Yes! I've heard. I— and— 
and — and . . . !' 

"Then followed a shower of words. . . . 
We talked for a few minutes on some things I 
wanted to know about. After the meeting I 
was lugged away by my friend Deming, who 
took me down to his studio for an hour or 

[80] 



LIFE IN NEW YORK 



more. . . . He and I may do some work 
together some day. 

"The wind is wailing outside as it does on 
the plains, and it strikes a chord of lonesome- 
ness in my soul. The wind is always wailing, 
singing, screaming, and murmuring out there, 
and when once you get used to its sound you 
never forget it. It reminds me of my past, 
with all its curious episodes from Indian 
camps and cow camps and then on into white 
folk's schools. Perhaps it is fortunate you are 
not here now, for I am in very much of a 
reminiscent mood, and might torture you 
with tales of all kinds. 

" March 21. The enclosed card [an invita- 
tion to a meeting of the Sequoya League] will 
tell you where I was last night. I had the 
pleasure of meeting a man I had been want- 
ing to meet. The man is the illustrator and 
artist Schreivogel. He does things western, 
especially where Indians and soldiers are 
fighting. You have seen his pictures, I know. 
They are like Remington's, only far better. 
This statement has reference only to the 
pictures in action. In atmosphere and cow- 
boys and ponies Remington is king, it seems 
to me. Well, the man and I exchanged 'jaw- 
breakers/ to use the Western vernacular, for 

[81] 



WILLIAM JONES 

a long time. Deming and I went over to- 
gether. I dined with him and his family at 
his studio. Afterwards he and Schreivogel and 
I went over to a German place and swapped 
stories and good German beer through clouds 
of smoke. 

"The Sequoya League is a pretty name, and 
that so far as I have been able to discover is 
its best thing. An interesting young Apache 
was there, and he and I scraped acquaintance. 
He is one of the Geronimo prisoners. I hope 
to learn something of him, and have asked 
him to come to the Museum to see me. 

"April 19. I have just come from Co- 
lumbia, where there was a big blow-out mak- 
ing a President out of Professor Butler. There 
was a host of learned men in garments of 
various colors and of various degrees. I 
ought to have strutted about in a Master's 
gown, but chose to be unostentatious and 
went in my ordinary clothes. I joined the 
crowd, and there were fine looking men in 
abundance and handsome women were a 
plenty. President Roosevelt was there, and 
it was fun now and then to see him 'smile 
toothfully' at a joke. Presidents of the col- 
leges were there, too, and chief among them 
was the very dignified Charles William Eliot, 

[82] 



LIFE IN NEW YORK 

who made the best short address of the day. 
Music sweet and soothing broke the monotony 
of the speeches. 

"I have not done much this day. I went 
down town to do a little purchasing, and 
dropped in on Deming. I smoked a cigar 
with him, while he talked about pictures and 
other interesting things. He is a bully fellow." 

Mr. Edwin Willard Deming (well known 
for his portrayal, on canvas and in bronze, of 
the real beauty and true spirit of Indian life) 
became one of William's best friends in Xew 
York. His studio in MacDougal Alley heard 
many a long talk on Indian manners and be- 
liefs, saw many an ancient tale put into ac- 
tion, and many a prairie game, when Jones, 
donning wolf skin or buffalo horns, romped 
in play with the artist's children. It is one of 
the best traits which his friends recall, that 
wherever Jones went, he made the young 
people love him. His letters are full of mes- 
sages to them. 

Though his chosen work demanded more 
and more from him, Jones never lost his habit 
of reading. He ranged through all conditions 
of good books, prose and verse, fiction and 
philosophy. In stories he took a special de- 
light, rendered all the keener by his profes- 
[83] 



WILLIAM JOXES 



sional knowledge of story-telling. "Yes," he 
answers a correspondent, "I have read and 
have had read to me Stevenson's letters. I 
like them very much, though I always had a 
strong suspicion that there were others which 
could have revealed more of the man himself. 
Stevenson is one of the men I can read at any 
time and all times. Xo one could beat him 
at a story, and no one had the same ease and 
grace.'' Later in this busy year he writes: 
"The day has been a most restful one. In 
the morning I started a story, and read a lit- 
tle from the Psalms of my Modern Reader's 
Bible, a little verse from the second series of 
my Golden Treasury, and much more from 
your 4 Kim.' In fact I do a little reading 
almost every day, but not all, in all the above 
works; and very little it is, but enough to 
keep me in touch with the human side of 
literature. It is a tremendous temptation to 
fall away from good reading when one has 
every hour full from 8.30 in the morning until 
10.30 and 11 in the night." 

The second year of graduate study closed 
like the first : Jones was not only re-appointed 
Fellow in Anthropology, but sent West, on 
much the same terms as before, to spend 
another summer among the Sauk and Foxes. 

[84] 



X 



ON THE PLAINS 

Jones reached his field in June, 1902, and 
living among the Indians, began once more to 
collect " specimens " and preserve legends. 
His letters, written at odd moments and odder 
places, tell of bad weather, delays, and dis- 
appointment, mingled now and then with 
success. 

"Tama, Iowa, June 22-29, 1902. I leave 
town this afternoon and make my home in the 
lodges. ... I am going to an Indian dance 
to-night. . . . Night before last an Indian 
told stories till after midnight, while the room 
was thoroughly fumigated with tobacco smoke. 
In the room was made a bunk for me and an- 
other for the yarn teller. The air was thick 
enough to be hacked into blocks. I thought 
I should die, but the thing to do is not to show 
discomfort, for I am a guest and must now do 
as the Foxes do. Most lodges are well venti- 
lated, but that was a house, one of the few 
good ones on the reservation. You would 
have laughed to see me rise this morning and 
do my dressing under a blanket. ... I have 
[85] 



WILLIAM JONES 



worn out all the soft places on my body. . . . 
But the whole thing is a bully outing, and I do 
not mind so long as I do not come in bodily 
contact with creeping insects. I use ether in 
my hair and clothes. ... I had a narrow 
escape this morning from a delectable bite of 
cooked dog. . . . Last night I entered the 
Ghost Dance Lodge, where a parasitic crowd 
of Pottawattomies, Chippewas, Winnebagoes, 
and others were dancing. Of course I took no 
part in the dance, but I wondered several 
times what I would do if an Indian came 
dancing up to me in the place where I was. 
That, you know, is a sign for the one seated 
to rise up and dance. At one time the boom 
of the drum was so lively and the singing so 
excited that the Indians were dancing like mad 
and whooping war-whoops like warriors in a 
fight. 

"Last night I slept in a room where a man 
had the floor and I had a sofa. Part of the 
time he slept, part of the time he lay awake 
puffing a pipe, and very much of the time he 
sang bully Indian songs through a husky 
nasal voice. He succeeded in keeping me 
awake. He got up very early and roamed 
about indoors and out. 

"Toledo, Iowa, July 17. When we started 

[86] 



OX THE PLAINS 



from Tama for Toledo we went into the face 
of a fearful windstorm, so thick that we could 
scarcely see ahead of us. It began to rain as 
we entered town, and just as we drew into a 
feed stable and under a roof, a tremendous 
downpour came. The place we drew into is a 
great big place, covering, I should say, an acre. 
It is a place for putting up teams. Up at the 
entrance, where it is light, I am writing this. 
The thunder is cracking outside, and the 
lightning is flashing about the sky; a regular 
cannonade is on. My Indian friend sits 
about two feet from my left elbow, his legs 
crossed, his back humped, and his chin in his 
hands; he looks as if in deep thought. A let- 
ter from my father yesterday says he may 
start for Iowa the last of this week. We are 
great chums. I think he has a fine head. I 
am going to take some pictures of it, front and 
side views. It always reminds me of Julius 
Caesar's, but with the tenderness and kind- 
ness of the youthful Augustus' head. You 
know the ones I mean. I suppose this is all 
imagination on my part. People who claim 
to know me say I have strong likes and dis- 
likes, and that I am likely to idealize people I 
like. I do not know, but you will know when 
you see him. 

[87] 



WILLIAM JOXES 



"August 4. Father and I are having an 
interesting time in the Camps visiting the 
people. The Indians are extremely hospi- 
table, and they entertain with ease and grace. 
Maple sugar is one of the great foods, and 
you may imagine my state of feeling when I 
catch sight of it. 

"August 13. I went to the camp last 
evening and spent the night there. The 
lodge is one of the flag-reed kind, shaped like 
an Eskimo snow hut, and I tell you the wind 
did blow against the lodge and the rain beat 
against it as if to soak it through. 

"August 15. Last night fell a tremendous 
rain, and the water splashed through the 
lodge. ... I fled in town to-day, for the 
chief is holding a dog feast, and I am not keen 
for a bite. ... I should probably have to 
pass round the dainties, for when the Bears 
are feasting the invited clans, the Eagles are 
attendants. The chief is from the Bear clan, 
and the chief's herald or runner or spokes- 
man is an Eagle. 

"September 19. Kansas somewhere. The 
weather has been extremely cool in Iowa, and 
now as we pass through Kansas I am begin- 
ning to come in contact with the familiar 
air of the plains. The air now is becoming 
[88] 



OX THE PLAINS 



warmer. To-night as we go into Oklahoma it 
will be even yet warmer. Familiar types be- 
gin to board the train, but the most familiar 
will not show up for about six hours yet. Now 
and then I hear the smooth, long-drawn-out 
drawl. "When we get into the Territory I 
shall hear heaps of it, and will begin to look 
for faces I know. The civilized part of this 
plains country is extremely homely to me. 
The houses are painfully ugly, and the trees 
and grass about them seem to be pitied. 

"Shawnee, September 22. It is interesting 
here. Sometimes when I have nothing to do, 
I drop into these gambling resorts and see the 
various gambling devices and notice how they 
are played. The men who drop in to gamble 
interest me too. I have seen all kinds of 
men . . . well dressed men of the city, slov- 
enly dressed men of the farms. There are the 
broad-brimmed hatted cowboys in high-heeled 
boots. Indians in varying costumes are at the 
tables, too. The ages of the gamblers vary 
from old gray-hairs to youths with the down 
yet on their faces. The faces of some are 
gentle and show gentle, pleasant breeding, 
and the faces of others are severe, brutal, and 
untrustworthy. I don't know that I told you 
that everybody drinks. 

[89] 



WILLIAM JONES 



"Sauk and Fox Agency, Oklahoma, Octo- 
ber 1. I am doing nothing more than loaf 
about this lazy place. I have not struck the 
sort of Indians I want. Though I happen in 
with a lot that are of no use to me, yet I am 
having a pleasant time in one way and an- 
other. I meet up with old faces, faces that 
were full of life when I was a child, and are 
now on the other side of the hill of life — on the 
downward slope of that hill. I visit old 
friends, and they are cordial. I go from 
house to house. The dogs do not bother me, 
which is a wonder, for there are heaps of them. 

"November 14. I am travelling north, 
and . . . glad that I am on my way. It is 
growing dark on the prairies, a sort of thing 
I like to see, because, somehow, it sets my 
mind to recalling past scenes of childhood 
when this country was worth while living 
in. — Somewhere along this road we will eat 
supper. There is a beautiful moon, and the 
view is beautiful out on the prairie." 

The scene quickly changed. Not long 
afterward, Jones returned to New York and 
began his third year in the graduate school at 
Columbia. 



[90] 



XI 



AMONG NORTHERN INDIANS 

Jones had intended to "go up" without 
delay for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 
The winter of 1902-1903 found him working 
harder than ever, holidays and all. After 
long hours at Columbia or the American Mu- 
seum, he spent the evenings over his doctor's 
thesis, "plugging away" with great anxiety. 
"I begin to see the monster," he wrote, when 
at last his subject grew into form. The com- 
bat was deferred, however, by a change of 
plans. His Indian material promised well, 
and his instructors urgently advised him to 
make his treatment of it thorough and de- 
liberate. He therefore put off his degree till 
another year. 

Meanwhile, to lose no time and to explore 
all possible sources, Jones made a short visit 
among the Indians at the Carlisle school. 
Here, in February, 1903, he reports himself 
as "having a pleasant time, in a way, with 
the Sauks and Kickapoos. They are ex- 
tremely cordial. I have a room where the 
Indians drop in, and they gladly give almost 

[91] 



WILLIAM JONES 



any help I ask. We had a regular story- 
telling bee last night, and I learned volumes 
of things I had not known before among the 
Kickapoos, but which I had suspected. — 
March 2. I had Indians all about me yester- 
day. To-day the Kickapoos have been in my 
room, giving me a good deal of information. 
Both the boys and girls are as nice to me as 
they can be. The teachers are cordial, too." 

For the rest, Jones passed his third year of 
graduate study much as the first and second, 
though his work increased. It was a red 
letter day — usually a Sunday — when he man- 
aged to see a friend or two. Theatres he could 
visit seldom, and then only 44 for a change, to 
rest my head," perhaps in some theatre where 
"bad acting predominated." — "But I don't 
mind that," he writes. "I get nearly as much 
entertainment watching the people, to note 
how the acting strikes them. Queer people 
get into the boxes, and I like to see the joy 
they get out of their self-sufficiencies, and the 
way they exchange salutations. . . . It is the 
kind of audience that hisses the villain." 
Next might come an evening at the house of a 
professor, "with other students, being taught 
Chinook"; a long talk about Indian life and 
Indian pictures with Mr. Deming; an after- 
[92] 



AMONG NORTHERN INDIANS 



noon conference of the learned at the Museum ; 
a quiet hour at the Harvard Club; or a 
smoker, at which "anthropologists round 
these parts assemble, to burn up the Doctor's 
cigarettes and cigars, and drink his beer, and 
eat his foods." 

In the spring, the authorities at Carlisle 
made a very generous reply to a request from 
Jones, and sent a Kickapoo boy, with whom 
he could do "language work," and study as 
in a living book lent from some inaccessible 
library. Jones, worn with other studies, had 
threatened to "rush him as fast as he will let 
me"; but in point of fact, he treated most 
carefully and kindly this young volume of old 
knowledge. "The Kickapoo lad arrived," he 
writes on May 11, "and yesterday I took him 
out to Bronx Park to see the animals. In the 
evening I thought it was my duty to take my 
man to Grace Church. It was pretty warm 
for my friend, and he did not have to urge me 
to go out into the cooler air. We went to the 
Demings' studio. — May 13. My Kickapoo 
and I are at it pretty much all the time. He 
is full of information. — May 15. This even- 
ing I took my Injun for a long walk up to 
12oth Street to see the sights. . . . We 
bought tickets to see Joseph Jefferson in The 
[93] 



WILLIAM JONES 



Rivals to-morrow night. My Injun and I are 
getting piles of stories. He is a jim-dandy, 
just full of yarns, and a very nice boy, too." 

When the year closed at Columbia, and the 
young Kickapoo had gone home, Jones con- 
trived to see his friends at Hampton. Here 
he took a holiday of some weeks. A letter 
written aboard ship on his return to New 
York, contains a highly characteristic pas- 
sage: 

"June 23. After breakfast I went into the 
smoking-room. . . . Three men were telling 
tales of experience, and between whiles dis- 
cussed subjects of many kinds. One man in- 
terested me particularly. He was from North 
Carolina. He had been in the Rockies in the 
early days, and some of his yarns were of ex- 
periences out there. Since then he had seen 
service on the sea. He was a storehouse of 
information. He talked with good sense and 
much detail in politics, law, government, ag- 
riculture, and betrayed a fine sense of humor. 
The old fellow did not speak the King's Eng- 
lish, but his words were racy, to the point, and 
pat. After a while two well dressed young 
men came in and sat down at my right. Pres- 
ently they began talking about psychology 
and biology, and I felt like booting them out 

[94] 



AMONG NORTHERN INDIANS 



of the room; but it soon seemed that their 
discussion was to be in an undertone and so 
did not interfere with the more interesting 
tales." 

In New York, Jones had a few hurried days, 
buying "a six-shooter, a cowboy hat, a rubber 
coat," and other articles of outfit. The Amer- 
ican Museum was sending him west again, on 
a more difficult mission: he was to travel 
through the region of the Great Lakes, and 
the farther country on both sides of the 
Canadian border, wherever he might find 
Indians living the old life or recalling it. His 
commission was a roving one, his journey, in 
some measure, a journey of discovery. The 
Indians would be scattered, especially during 
the summer season; and even in their settle- 
ments, they would show varying degrees and 
effects of contact with white men. Jones 
could not choose beforehand the places most 
fit for his purpose. He could only go and see, 
experiment, scout and learn. 

From Sault Sainte Marie, he began his 
search by going to Kensington Point, the 
scene of the annual Hiawatha play, where he 
did an errand for the Museum, and made 
friends with certain visiting Indians. The 
play itself he dismissed impatiently, saying 

[95] 



WILLIAM JONES 



that he had never seen "so much pretension 
of knowledge about Indians with so much 
ignorance." Jones took far greater pleasure 
in the company of an "old Hudson's Bay 
employe, George Linklater. He is Scotch and 
Indian. He knows pretty much all the coun- 
try between here and Hudson's Bay, and can 
speak the various dialects of the region. He 
has given me an interesting tale or two of his 
experiences. I may propose his name for a 
probable companion in the trip to Labrador.* 
He is the type of the old frontiersman of our 
country, the sort I imagine my grand-daddy 
and his kin were." 

Grand River, Manitoulin Island, Spanish 
River, were the first places where Jones tried 
to find a few Indians knowing the old life. 
The rest of what he called his "summer gad- 
ding" took him north-about round Lake 
Superior, through Manitoba, North Dakota, 
Wisconsin, and Minnesota, down to his old 
friends and kinsmen the Iowa Foxes. 

"Thessalon, Ontario, July 8. Lake Huron 
looked still and quiet. I wanted to go out on 
some rock and sit. The nights are beautiful 
now. Last night I turned in at two in the 
morning. Kabaoosa, the Indian, and I sat 

* A proposed expedition, which Jones never made. 

[96] 



AMONG NORTHERN INDIANS 



out in front of his house and talked on and 
on. He told me tales, and I exchanged, and 
thus the hours of the night flew by. We be- 
came good friends. . . . This man Kabaoosa 
is of the family that gave Schoolcraft the 
material from which Longfellow made his 
Song of Hiawatha. Kabaoosa gave me In- 
dian versions of things used in the poem. 

"Nepigon, Ontario, July 17. I met some 
Indians from Albany River. They came down 
in canoes. We had a great time talking to 
each other. They don't always understand 
me, and I don't always understand them, but 
we manage to get along pretty well. The 
Indians speak a mixture of Cree and Ojibway. 
Often I can understand a whole streak, and 
then at times I don't get a bit. 

''I am constantly overcome with the things 
I see in this grand Lake country. I want to 
see even what is more wild, back up in the 
forests, lakes and rivers. 

"Fort William, Ontario, July 22. I went 
straight for t^e Indian reservation, which is 
about two miles from here. I found the peo- 
ple exceedingly mild and kind, which was only 
in keeping with what I have found among 
these Ojibways all along. I never saw In- 
dians so willing, so kind in their hospitality. 

[97] 



WILLIAM JOXES 



I met an old French half-blood, Penassie by 
name, who took me round among the people. 
He will make some things for me, traps to 
catch bear, skunk, mink, and so on, and other 
things in the way of games and the like. 

"Mine Centre, Ontario, August 3. Most 
of the boarders, at least they who make their 
presence felt the most, are English. I came 
near to being rude several times. They talk 
about things in general in such a superficial 
manner, and about all the earth in such a 
condescending way, that it is not always easy 
to remain within hearing. But their intona- 
tion, and their style of pronunciation, and the 
way they do it, are enough to limber the 
stiffest. Actually I laughed twice at table, 
even though I was a stranger to those present. 
I could not contain myself. One Englishman 
tickles me even to look at him : he is a glorious 
freak. 

"Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, August 7. 
I drove out into the country to-day and saw 
the Indians of Long Plain. They are Ojib- 
ways, and a primitive lot. ... [A certain 
official] went along. He was no use to me, and 
I am sorrv not to have taken an Indian. 
Some Sioux have a village two and a half 
miles south of here. They are Santee Sioux. 

[98] 



AMONG NORTHERN INDIANS 



They came here after the Minnesota massa- 
cre, and have been here ever since, afraid to 
go back. They are different from Ojibways. 
The 0 jib way is the more aggressive, more 
conservative, and more pagan. The Indians 
were very cordial to me to-day. The [certain 
official] was dumbfounded to see me talking 
away to the Indians in a tongue unknown to 
him. I doubt if he understands me yet. He 
has learned that I was brought up on a cow 
ranch, among Indians, at Harvard and Co- 
lumbia, and I am sure he does not under- 
stand. 

"August 8. I visited the Sioux this morn- 
ing. The poor things feel they are exiles, I 
am sure. I talked with one old man, and he 
learned I had seen some of his people. His 
feelings were pretty strong, and his emotion 
was deep. I gathered a good deal from his 
broken speech and vague gestures. It sur- 
prised me to find he knew nothing of the sign 
language, which the western part of his people 
knew so well. 

"Dunseith, North Dakota, August 16. 
This town lies flat in a prairie valley. . . . 
The nights are quiet, only the wail of the 
wind as it sweeps past the corners. I was re- 
minded of the old Indian Territory last night 

[99] 



WILLIAM JONES 



as I lay half awake thinking of many things, 
and hearing the cry of the wind. Many a 
night have I gone to sleep with the wind 
lulling me. I wish I could explain why it is 
and in what way the wind affects me so. I 
used to miss it at Hampton and at Andover, 
but I think I was weaned of it at Harvard. 
It cries a little in the day time, but not so 
much as at night. . . . 

"I got to Dunseith yesterday at noon, and 
called on the Indians I came to see in the 
afternoon. They live in a very pagan manner 
among the hills north of the town, called the 
Turtle Mountains. ... I passed the Agency 
on coming out here. The agent met me on 
the way. He eyed me in the characteristic 
manner agents use when I first approach 
them. Their first attitude makes me feel like 
a rattlesnake or something to be shunned. 
But they collapse into their own forms again 
when they know that my mission has nothing 
to do with their affairs. [This agent] turned 
out to be a very pleasant old man. 

"Churche's Ferry, N. D., August 21. I 
got some very nice things from the Turtle 
Mountain Ojibways. I made friends with 
several, and it was a bit touching the way 
some of them bade me good-by. 

[100] 



AMONG NORTHERN INDIANS 

"I got fond of Dunseith. The wide sweep 
of the prairies I got from the hills must be the 
reason. It is a magnificent sight, and I do 
not know when I have seen quite the like, 
unless it was in old Oklahoma before the 
opening. At evening at the time of dusk a 
huge feeling of vastness would take posses- 
sion of me. I had begun to understand why 
the Indians were so fond of the particular 
place where they are now. It seems that the 
tribes used to gather in the hills about Dun- 
seith and hold great ceremonies. Coyotes 
yelp at night yet, and it was a satisfactory 
sensation to listen to the old familiar sound 
I used to go to sleep to. 

"September 29. The frost has nipped the 
birch and poplar and red oak, and I wish I 
could describe to you the beautiful soft yellow 
of the birch and poplar leaves, and how rich 
the crimson is on the leaves of the oak. We 
paddled by miles and miles of color on both 
sides of us. It has been a long time since I 
have eaten so much wild meat. 

"Tama, Iowa, October 15. [Among the 
Foxes.] I arrived here this morning, and it 
seems like coming back to a place where I 
have always lived. People greeted me in a 
very generous manner, and the Indians were 

[101] 



WILLIAM JOXES 

even more demonstrative. I had the chief 
and his head men at dinner with me, and we 
talked in a pleasant way almost all the after- 
noon. . . . You should see how people look 
and stare when Indians come and greet me 
and go round with me." 

A few weeks later Jones was in Xew York 
again, helping at the Museum and the college. 
He spent the Christmas holidays of 1903 at 
Hampton, Virginia. 



[ 102 ] 



XII 



DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

Private examination and public ceremony 
did their best, on June 8, 1904, to change 
YVilliam Jones into a Doctor of Philosophy. 
It is enough to say that he received his de- 
gree, in the company of many other studious 
young men and women, a cloud of professors, 
chairmen, and grand marshals lending dignity 
and security, while fiddlers played the Sahd 
d 9 Amour, Jones took the process with a good 
grain of humor. From his thesis, or disserta- 
tion — "Some Principles of Algonkin Word 
Formation" — he said that he gained pleasure. 
"It is different from temperamental writing. 
I am always put on my guard, must not make 
statements that cannot stand alone. Good 
discipline, no doubt. But the thing is really 
amusing. Think of it, a grammar on an In- 
dian tongue that will never be used on this 
green ball except, perhaps, by a few special 
students who may only finger over the pages 
and chuck it aside with the most indifferent 
feeling in the world." At the same time he 
had worked his hardest, "anxious to do it 

[103] 



WILLIAM JONES 

fully in as brief a manner as possible," and 
wishing, for the sake of his readers, he "had 
a style that would rivet their eyes till the last 
page was read!" His preparation was "the 
severest affair I have ever gone through. . . . 
I am deep in mire trying to fill my head full 
of all kinds of knowledge." His oral examina- 
tion before a long table of wise men so dazed 
and excited him that he could "hardly recall 
even the questions asked, to say nothing of 
the answers I made. The moment I would 
pull myself together, my mouth would be- 
come as dry as a powder-horn, and I could 
hardly speak. I was skinned alive ... a 
very formal proceeding." He had faced the 
ordeal seriously, he was glad of his success. 
"And now I am to be classed in that group of 
men known as Doctors of Philosophy. The 
title is only a term, but it means a heap." It 
meant to him, above everything, a prompt 
and lively sense of gratitude toward those 
friends who had given him his start. "Now 
that the game is over and I have won, it is 
only natural that I should think of them first 
of all." But he did not set too high a value 
on his winnings. Never, when he could pre- 
vent, would Jones allow himself to be called 
Doctor. 

[104] 



DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

His own attainment, the sincerity of his 
purpose, his respect for all true scholarship, 
admitted no trace, even temporary, of the 
scholar's pride. Jones loved plain Anthropos 
the man better than Dr. Anthropologist. 
Born and reared in the open, he did not en- 
joy what is called the "educational" atmos- 
phere. "I whiled away about two hours," he 
writes, " * beating the air' with my pedagogical 
friends at the Sunday dinner table. I wonder 
if I have ever described them to you? You 
know people very often betray their profes- 
sion by the style of the garment and the man- 
ner of wearing the same, by the speech and by 
the attitude toward things in general. The 
class-room, like the motion to adjourn, takes 
precedence before all matters for talk. These 
dominies talk class-room at breakfast, the 
same at noon, and heat it up for supper. 
There is no harm done, the excitement is 
innocent enough; but like a boiled potato 
three times a day for seven days in the week, 
it actually tends toward monotony." And 
again: "I am touching on a side of life which 
I feel a great hunger for. I long for the com- 
panionship of fellows I used to know in my 
last year at college, like Henry, and Colonel, 
and Bill. It is like green pastures when I get 
[105] 



WILLIAM JONES 

with Bill and the Colonel at odd hurried 
moments, these days. My scientific friends 
(classmates and fellow-students) are all right, 
it is only myself sort of out of gear." Jones 
had made, and continued to make, warm and 
lasting friendships among the men of his 
profession: always with men who, like him- 
self, did the most thorough work, but who 
like himself, at the close of day could brush 
off the class-room chalk or the Museum dust, 
and cheerfully rejoin the outer world. 6 6 When- 
ever Jones and I finished our afternoon," 
said one of these colleagues, "and went out 
for a smoke and a glass together, there was 
no longer any such thing as Anthropology on 
the face of the globe." 

After getting his doctor's degree, Jones 
worked as hard as ever, in the city heat, on a 
grammar of the Fox language, on the proofs 
of his thesis — afterward published in the 
"American Anthropologist" — and on many 
preparations for the field. He kept long 
hours, yet managed to see his friends, dine 
with them, beat them at revolver practice in 
a shooting gallery, paddle canoes with them 
up the Hudson, and snatch a brief holiday on 
the Maine coast, though even there he began 
writing a treatise to be read (by somebody 
[106] 



DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



else, we may be sure!) before a congress of 
scientists in St. Louis. His own summer read- 
ing was in a book which interested him 
greatly, — "Varieties of Religious Experience,"; 
by the late William James. 

The close of July found him travelling 
westward by train, in high spirits at the sight 
of green country, and of people who looked 
"as if they lived close to the earth and its 
doings." His letters, penciled in haste, hold 
many a thumbnail sketch of his fellow pas- 
sengers and of fleeting scenery. Among these 
passages, two reveal their writer in opposite 
moods, both strongly in character. The first 
episode came when Jones met some Jack-in- 
office at a railway station. "Do you suppose 
I could get anything from the stupid Eng- 
lishman behind the glass window? I asked 
politely, and was as considerate as one could 
be. I wanted to know, first, the fare from 
Sudbury to Garden River. He said he did 
not know if it cost one dollar or a thousand. 
I began to boil under my white hat, but kept 
steady, and asked him to tell me the distance 
between the two places. He threw a time 
table out at me. I was pretty well heated, 
but contained myself, went to a seat, and 
began to work the table out; got to a point 
[107] 



WILLIAM JONES 

that stuck me, and so went to the bear to get 
a little light. He began his performance 
again. I let fly a piece of English and asked 
him out on my side of the window. He did 
not come, but he got jolted into enough 
decency to give information." — The second 
episode took place in a railway car. "Across 
the aisle was a mournful looking girl of about 
eighteen, with a doleful aunt with two or 
three children. They spent the time crying, 
the aunt and niece, and talking about one 
departed. . . . The seat in front of me was 
vacant. After many risings and sittings the 
niece, a pretty brunette, came over, and in 
many ways sought attention from the man in 
the white hat behind. Finally she asked how 
far to a certain station; I looked in my 
schedule sheet and told her. She sighed a 
deep sigh, and told a pitiful story of a journey 
she was making, and how long it was seeming. 
She got a telegram last night, she and her 
aunt, that her little brother was drowned, 
and for them to come. She was starving for 
sympathy. I talked with her, and used all 
kinds of devices to turn her mind away to 
other things, but of no avail. She was a pretty 
little thing, with jet black hair and deep, 
mellow eyes that talked volumes. She was 

[108] 



DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



simple-minded, with a delightful, naive man- 
ner, a poor girl, and had some store position 
in Sault Ste. Marie. It tore my heart to see 
her in so much grief. I wish I could have 
lightened her burden." 

Our traveller now began the summer's 
work, visiting his Indian friends, old and new, 
on either side of the Canadian border. "It is 
a pleasure to come back here," he wrote, 
"and have the people welcome me in the de- 
lightful way they do." Garden River he had 
a hard time leaving, the Indians were "so 
cordial, so entertaining, so friendly." Jones 
met with many "genuine story-book char- 
acters," both white and red, who told him 
freely the strange narrative of their lives. 
He saw with delight the various panorama 
of outdoors, where "lofty islands stand in 
bold relief against a mist and cloud of back- 
ground on the lake ward side, and on the 
other, hillsides of tall evergreen"; or "country 
where one can get as lonely and disconsolate 
as one pleases . . . distance after distance, 
dreary wastes of stunted growth, and what 
remains of dense forests, where fires have 
passed through and left tall, bare trees stand- 
ing dead." The Ojibways beyond Thunder 
Bay made him welcome once more; and once 

[109] 



WILLIAM JONES 

more he "dwelt at court" in the old chief 
Penassie's log house. Jones pitched hay for 
his host, or watched his hostess while she 
traded pickerel and suckers for eggs. He 
gave medicine to the sick, wrote state papers 
for the tribe, attended their long night coun- 
cils. Penassie was "chock full of all kinds of 
lore," so that inside his house there was much 
talk, much writing down of tales told slowly 
and broken by the arrival of Indian gossips. 
The telling was marked, however, "with very 
fine artistic skill. I have one tale in particu- 
lar," Jones wrote, "which keeps me guessing 
all the time. All of the stories are naive and 
unconscious. I don't know if my narrator 
(old Penassie) is an artist, or if it is the genius 
of the O jib was that makes these stories so 
good. Suggestion is resorted to with fine 
effect, and it is never studied. For artistic 
effect I have no Sauk, Fox, or Kickapoo story 
to come up to the standard of some I'm now 
getting. ... Of course I'm taking the 
stories down in Indian . . . already more 
than two hundred pages of text, and I am 
sure of as much again." Thus the days were 
busy; not so the nights. "The old chief one 
evening took me out to walk with him and 
showed me some of his realm. In a moment 
[110] 



DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



of extreme friendliness he let fall some re- 
marks to the effect that he wished I would 
come and live here, take to myself a wife and 
be one of the people; that he would give me 
some land and allow me all the rights of his 
people. The poor old man, of course, is 
ignorant of the big world outside. . . . The 
village is as silent as a graveyard at night; 
lights are out early. The chapel bell is about 
the only thing in the village to interrupt the 
silence.' ' By nine o'clock in the evening, 
Jones had usually undressed under his blan- 
kets, in a corner opposite "the royal bunk," 
where he could hear, in the darkness, the 
chief's family telling their beads. 

Up Rainy River to Pelican Lake a "rather 
hard and barren" journey brought Jones into 
the wilderness, where he camped among some 
pagan Bois Fort O jib ways. These gave him 
so much valuable information that he was 
"kept busy day and night," besides, as he 
said, "having the time of my life." The 
Indians vied with each other to have their 
spoken words recorded, so that the young 
doctor's note-books were filled up at wonder- 
ful speed, until November brought the north- 
ern winter. "The Indians seemed," wrote 
Jones, "to dislike my leaving. They gave me 

[in] 



WILLIAM JONES 



a dance for a send off. They had tried to get 
me to dance on various occasions before, but 
this time I gave in to please them. Inci- 
dentally I 'got onto' a new step. I have 
another which . . . looks like a ghost-dance 
step with back bent forward, arms free and 
swinging back and forth, and the dancer mov- 
ing sidew^ise one way and then back again, 
now receding, now coming forward. It is an 
eye opener, and I hope to spring it on you 
some time when no one's around. The women 
have a cunning step which I should like to 
know. Their skirts are so low that I cannot 
see." 

From Bois Fort and these parting festivi- 
ties, Jones 4 'came out through ice and snow" 
to the Agency at Leech Lake. There he 
found a 4 'warm hazy Indian summer" still 
lingering; good company and "very delight- 
ful" surroundings; a helper in Joe Morrison, 
"an old Carlisle boy and the best interpreter" 
he had met among the Ojibways; cordial 
visitors, Indians from Bear Island, who took 
him to see a medicine dance of the Midiwiwin; 
altogether, a chance to round out "a vast 
amount of excellent myth material," — so full, 
indeed, and recorded with so much fidelity, 
that Jones might well permit himself, as he 
[112] 



DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



almost never did, to feel "very satisfied" with 
his own part of the work. Already, he had 
done for O jib way lore what no other man 
could do. His only comment was: "The 
language of the texts is very pure, I am sure." 

Late in November, Jones travelled to Okla- 
homa, for the purpose of revisiting the Sauks 
and Foxes. From Shawnee, he wrote: "The 
air is soft and the sunshine warm, a great 
contrast to the northern woods. The wind 
wails just the same as it used to when I was a 
child. The wind cries on these plains in a way 
different from anywhere else. Last night the 
train stopped several times on the broad 
prairies, and at once my ear caught the old 
familiar moan. It started up a thousand 
recollections." He stayed in this home coun- 
try for a few weeks, to complete his account 
of the Sauks and Foxes, their language and 
their material culture, by collecting whatever 
he could find concerning their religion. This 
done, Jones went "over into the Seminole 
country after two slabs of stone bearing on 
them the figures of human foot-prints"; and 
then, bringing to its end a highly successful 
expedition, he turned back toward the white 
man's world. 

Most of the difficulties under which our 

[113] 



WILLIAM JONES 



friend worked, are of necessity omitted in this 
account. Some of them may be gathered 
from the following letter, written in the sum- 
mer of 1904: 

"My dear Deming: I am glad to get the 
letter that came this morning and another 
that came about six or eight days ago. . . . 

"I've had the finest kind of luck since my 
last letter to you. The old chief has given 
me some dandy tales, and now I'm getting 
some good things on the old time religious 
worship. I could do more and faster work 
but for a mob that lives in the loft overhead. 
His grandson married a young woman of 
very uncertain morals but with a goodly host 
of relatives by blood and otherwise. She and 
the crowd occupy the upstairs of the cabin, 
and it's like a thunder storm by day as well as 
by night. Damn their lazy hides, if I had 
but an inch of authority I'd fire them p. d. q. 
They sponge off the chief, and do it in the 
most cold blooded manner. Sometimes they 
get up energy enough to move to the bush to 
pick berries, and you should behold the 
caravan — four women, two men, two children 
is the least number. I don't mention the dogs. 
They get good money for the berries — 50 cents 
for a small pail holding three or four quarts. 
[114] 



DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

Instead of buying food and clothing they blow 
it in for booze. They sober up before they 
arrive on the premises, that is sober up enough 
to make what they consider a proper entry. 
But the look of booze is all over them. The 
old chief is perfectly straight and never drinks, 
and it's only his good easy nature that pre- 
vents him from having the whole gang pulled. 
But they stood too long on that good nature 
last night. They had been on a debauch of 
several days, and last evening when the old 
man had told off his beads and gone to bed, 
here the damned outfit came, and they seemed 
to try to stamp the stairs through. They were 
having a regular rough house time of it up 
there, while the young wife of the grandson 
was doing a stunt of her own. The old man's 
ear caught the sound of her whistle through 
the din above, and he rose to find her signal- 
ling to a lover out in the moonlight. Without 
any ceremony whatever he grabbed the young 
woman, turned her face the other way, and 
booted her up the stairs. Of course she was 
surprised. She once made an attempt to hit 
the old man with a lacrosse stick. I don't 
know but that she did land him one over the 
ear. But about the same time the old fellow 
dashed a cup of water in her face, and you 
[115] 



WILLIAM JONES 



should have heard the yell that went forth 
from some one. * Blood! blood! Go get 
Simon ! ' Simon is a policeman. The girl and 
the old man then started for Simon's. The 
old man is about 70, but he gave the girl a 
run for her fun. She tried to pass him, but 
her wind gave out. 'Come on! Run! Run!' 
yelled the old man. But the run did no good, 
for Simon's ears were deaf to both. To-day 
is calm, but the storm will break out when the 
young husband returns home. He went off 
for a two-weeks trip to fish. The old man 
came back mad as a hornet. You could 
have heard a gnat breathe upstairs after the 
rumpus; it was as silent as the tomb. I shall 
lie about here for another week, and then I'll 
pull for some place on the Rainy River. . . . 

"... I think I've enough trout, whitefish, 
pickerel, and pike to last me for a while, 
though I might go the trout and whitefish a 
little longer. I refuse sturgeon, but I don't 
know why. . . . The Smith and Wesson is 
all you say it is. Crows inside of a 100 yards 
get it where they'll never get it again, or else 
they get out in a hurry never to return. The 
chief's wife would have cooked a crow for me 
the other day! I made myself clear, you bet, 
that she needn't cook any crow for me. The 

[116] 



DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



chief said they were good, for he'd always 
eaten them! But we had no crow. 

"I am glad that all is going well with you 
in the way of work. It's good to hear that 
Mrs. Deming and the girls are well. Re- 
member me to them, won't you? . . . Give 
greetings to Mr. Hall, — and much luck and 
good health to yourself. 

" Yours sincerely, 

"Uncle Billy." 

The year 1904 closed very happily for 
Jones. He reached Hampton and his Vir- 
ginia friends, his nearest and dearest, in time 
for the Christmas merry-making. 



[117] 



XIII 



THE QUESTION OF MONEY 

"An honorable poverty," according to 
Gibbon, long sufficed to keep the Roman 
soldier hard and valiant. More than one 
young man of science, in America, has been 
loaded with the same austere benefit. The 
young men follow their profession through, 
make the usual sacrifices, and put the best 
face on the matter. But sometimes it is a 
pity. Sometimes, were the poverty a little 
less, the honor might be greater, — not to the 
men, but to the national cause in which they 
are engaged. There is grievous loss, at any 
rate, when a man like Dr. Jones — young, full 
of power, full of promise, given by nature 
incomparable qualities for a certain work, 
anxious to justify his long, costly training — 
when such a man must wait, and forego, and 
cast about. Jones was ardently willing to put 
forth "that one talent which 'tis death to 
hide." Our American republic is both a 
stingy and a careless master. One instance, 
well stated by Mr. Dillon Wallace, may indi- 

[118] 



THE QUESTION OF MONEY 



cate the nature of our loss. "Doctor Jones 
desired very strongly," writes Mr. Wallace,* 
"to accompany the last Outing expedition 
into Labrador, that he might live there for 
two or three years with the northern Nas- 
caupees; but funds necessary to meet the 
expenses were not forthcoming, and he was 
forced to relinquish his plan. Had he lived to 
return from the Philippines he would un- 
doubtedly have done this neglected work in 
ethnic research among the most primitive 
North American Indians of to-day. There is 
no one else half so well fitted as was Doctor 
Jones to do it, and it is now improbable that 
it will ever be done, or at least thoroughly 
done, and the world is so much the poorer." 

This research in Labrador was not the only 
work which Jones was ready for, and failed of. 
The year 1905 brought him much disappoint- 
ment and uncertainty. He had accomplished 
great results, but only on temporary commis- 
sions, renewed from year to year. Jones 
naturally wished to see his way toward per- 
manent appointment, to stay in his Algonkin 
field where he was most needed, and staying 
there, to earn such a living as would make 
possible his marriage. He was always brave 

* Outing Magazine, June, 1909. 

[119] 



WILLIAM JONES 

and hopeful; many active friends were watch- 
ing his career, wishing to further it; but as 
one of them said, "the whole ethnological 
situation of the country" was clouded, the 
outlook far from bright. A place in the Bu- 
reau of Ethnology at Washington might have 
enabled him to devote his life to a study of 
the Algonkin stock. No such position was 
ready. The late George Rice Carpenter, of 
Columbia — whose name is gratefully remem- 
bered by many young men — would have per- 
suaded Jones to write an Indian novel, or a 
collection of essays, presenting Indian life as 
viewed through Indian eyes. In time, Jones 
might have written such a book, — who knows 
how wonderfully? But time was lacking: 
once again, our loss. Meanwhile, he could 
earn a living, and little more, by doing con- 
stantly the hardest kind of work. 

There were moods of discouragement. A 
year before, Jones had been offered, and had 
seriously considered, a position as Indian 
agent; and once it was only half in joke that 
he proposed "if things cannot and will not 
turn up, to go West and grow up with the 
country." These moods were not the man. 
Out of dragging disappointment he writes — 
44 1 am really enjoying my work . . . writing 

[ no] 



THE QUESTION OF MONEY 



up my Sauk and Fox stuff." He was "quite 
content " with his Ojibway collection of texts. 
As for the future, the lack of professional 
openings — this door to which he had been so 
carefully led, only to find it locked — he felt 
that "the whole situation [was] exceedingly 
absurd." He could always see humor, even 
in a personal situation. 

Thus, when obliged to "declaim," before 
brother scientists, "on the religious concep- 
tion of the Manitou among the Central Algon- 
kins," he reported the meeting as follows: 
"There were four speakers . . . and the au- 
dience was about eight, making two apiece for 
each blower. The thing seemed at first as 
though it was in for all night. The first 
speaker up was a German, and he droned 
away a full hour. I squeaked for ten minutes 
and then slept through the other two speeches. 
I simply did what the other eight did. We 
all woke up at the end, and found it nearly 
eleven o'clock." 

Such dormouse entertainment was not for 
him. We have a better picture of the man off 
duty, as he appeared to a friend who knew him 
well, and who saw much of him at Mr. Dem- 
ing's studio in McDougal Alley. The place 
was like home to him. "Uncle Billy," our 
[ 121 ] 



WILLIAM JONES 



informant writes, "had his own ring of the 
door bell; and when he gave it, there was a 
wild scramble among the little Demings to see 
who would get to the door first. Often he had 
to wait until they were untangled. Mean- 
while, Uncle Billy was thinking up a way to 
add to the confusion; and as soon as the door 
was open, there would come the loud roar of a 
lion, or a buffalo would charge through the 
little people, rush to the fire place, where he 
would find some convenient cast off buffalo 
horns, which he would appropriate, and com- 
mence chasing little Demings (as he called 
them, 'Little Wolves') all over the studio, 
butting them. They played until 'The Sky 
Woman ' (as he called the mother) announced 
dinner, which offered a relief to the shattered 
nerves and the fractured quiet of the big, 
weird barn silence in the Deming studio. 
Uncle Billy was tired first, so he had to pay 
the forfeit, a good-night story after dinner; 
and then the little ones were packed off up- 
stairs, and Uncle Billy with the others rested 
and wondered at the peaceful quiet. But 
Uncle Billy loved the romp most! 

"The children loved Uncle Billy's 'Fraid 
Heart' story best of all; and when there was 
turkey or chicken for dinner, the 'Fraid 
[ 122] 



THE QUESTION OF MONEY 



Heart' had to be carefully divided so each 
child would have his share. 

"The summers were long when Uncle Billy 
had to be in the Field. The letters were 
eagerly looked for and read aloud so the little 
people would hear too; and when Fall finally 
came, and the expressman threw trunks and 
bags marked 'W. J.' at the studio door with- 
out any word or information, not one child 
left the house longer than was necessary for 
fear Uncle Billy would come while he was 
away." 

In the year 1905, neither the children nor 
his older friends were to see him return to 
New York. Severe illness kept Jones in hos- 
pital through part of June, and this, with 
other misfortunes, delayed the start of his 
final 0 jib way expedition until August. The re- 
mainder of that year he spent among the 
Indians. First came Canadian Ojibways, who 
were "extremely nice" to him, and of whose 
hospitality, "the Indian form, softened by 
French influence," he said that he had never 
seen the equal. They were Catholics, so that 
for their Friday meals there was much fishing 
to do, often before breakfast, when "the water 
was quiet and a haze dimmed the high prom- 
ontories of the cape and islands." A clever 
[123] 



WILLIAM JONES 

woman, Melisse by name, gave Jones " great 
help'' in the interpretation of tales and 
legends, — the North Shore material which he 
had gathered in the foregoing season. The 
region was rich in legend, poor in ceremony. 
Civilization had relaxed the old habits, a 
fact upon w T hich Jones commented quaintly: 
"these people do not observe some of the 
rules in use among the wilder tribes. Women, 
particularly, gabble at will." Nevertheless, 
he writes, "I could get a fine collection of 
stories if I remained here; but I must be off 
to wilder people who dance and do magic." 

These he found at Bois Fort, along with 
many "fine cosmic myths" — the story of the 
Great Otter which nightly sparkles in the 
northern sky, the tales of Nanabucu, of Hell 
Diver, and the sacred origin of things — told 
in an old chief's lodge, in Jones's tent under a 
hill by Lake Vermilion, or in the canoe of his 
friend, Ten Claws, the hunter. Snow and ice 
drove him, once more, out from the wilder- 
ness; but not until he had "a very big collec- 
tion of tales," about which he could say — 
"It is pretty good stuff, and I am proud of 
it." November and December he spent at the 
Leech Lake Indian Agency, revising this and 
former collections, measuring his own ac- 
[124] 



THE QUESTION OF MONEY 



curacy by the variants of Indian interpreters, 
reading proof sheets of a dictionary of tribes 
for the Bureau of Ethnology, and, in his few 
leisure moments, trying to see and plan his 
future. This last was the hardest work, but 
Jones determined to be patient. "If what I 
know and what I can do is of any value," he 
wrote, "I ought by spring to get some sort of 
a position." 

The hope was not fulfilled. By mid-winter 
of 1906, Jones had returned to New York, 
but found no prospect of permanent employ- 
ment in Algonkin research. The Carnegie 
Institution offered him, indeed, another grant 
(which he accepted) to continue the prepara- 
tion of his 0 jib way papers. Still, everything 
was temporary, everything uncertain. And 
then suddenly Jones came to the cross-roads 
of his life. Dr. G. A. Dorsey, of the Field 
Museum of Natural History in Chicago, came 
to New York and gave him the choice of three 
expeditions, to Africa, to the South Sea Is- 
lands, or to the Philippines. Here were three 
regions open, all at once, and all, to an an- 
thropologist, full of good hunting. Jones at 
first refused, rightly. For a long time he tried 
in every direction to get Algonkin work. His 
friends then felt — and now see clearly — that 
[125] 



WILLIAM JONES 



here if ever was a man who knew our North 
American Indians, and who, by blood, and 
training, and predilection, ought to stay where 
he had begun so brilliantly. There was no 
help for it. As a last resort, Jones consented 
to undertake the Philippine expedition. Since 
he had the Ojibway material yet to complete 
for the Carnegie Institution, it was judged 
best that he should go to Chicago, finish there 
his contracted work, and while broadening his 
acquaintance with scientific men and methods, 
prepare himself for a new and alien field. 

In June, 1906, therefore, Doctor Jones went 
to Chicago, and began his connection with the 
Field Museum. 



[ 1^6 ] 



XIV 



THE PHILIPPINES 

Doctor Jones lived in Chicago for about 
a year. Except that he found pleasant com- 
panions at the Field Museum, and soon, as 
was his habit everywhere, made friends of 
them, there is little to be recorded about this 
period of his life. He kept long, busy hours in 
the Museum, near which he had his lodgings. 
"You know," he writes, "the part of the city I 
am in is like an inland country town with lots 
of open air and space; and so I never go down 
town into the dust, cinders, rush and noise, 
only when I have to. The Museum, you know, 
is on the Lake. There are green plots, with 
trees often. For example, a maple comes up 
to my window. To smoke I must go out of 
doors, which in one way is a hardship, but in 
another quite a recreation; for the lawns, and 
groves, and lagoons, and big Lake are all 
there." 

The Philippine expedition * took shape 
slowly, with much postponement. "My work 
out there (in the Philippines) will probably be 

* Organized by Mr. R. F. Cummings. 

[127] 



WILLIAM JONES 



with the pygmy black man called the Negrito. 
He is the wild man of the islands, wild in the 
sense that he lives in out of the way places, 
and not that he is ferocious. The main thing 
holding me back at present is a piece of work 
I am doing for the Carnegie Institution. It 
will be devoted almost entirely to the transla- 
tion of Ojibway myths and traditions which I 
collected at various times in Canada and 
Northern Minnesota. I will present the tales 
as they came from the lips of the narrator, 
and my manuscript will be so arranged that 
both text and translation can be published at 
the same time, with the Ojibway on one page 
and the translation on the other. Of course 
you know this is rather for science than for 
popular reading, and it is better so; for much 
of it is naive and unrestrained, and it wades 
with childish simplicity through what so- 
called civilized people term indelicacy. The 
work should have one feature that may be of 
popular interest. The background of the 
Song of Hiawatha is the mythology of the 
Ojibways. Now by means of these tales one 
can pick out just what is Indian and what is 
the poet's fancy." 

It was with regret that Jones left this work 
unfinished, and made ready, at last, for his 

[ 128] 



THE PHILIPPINES 



voyage across the Pacific. Though being sent 
on most generous terms, he felt the break in 
the main design of his training. "I wish I 
had something here," said he. But even such 
a wish, even the natural sadness at leaving 
his friends, could not tarnish a bright zeal for 
his profession, an old strong love of active 
service. 

Chance words may not be taken for pre- 
sentiment. Yet more than once, during these 
last days in America, Jones spoke or wrote of 
things to be done "by the time I get back, if 
I ever do"; and in July, 1907, he revisited his 
birthplace — the old prairie of the moaning 
wind — to take, as he said afterward, "a last 
look." He sailed from Seattle in August, on 
the ship A hi Maru. 

From this point onward, we have only let- 
ters and a diary.* Jones landed in Manila on 
Friday, the 13th of September, and began at 
once to collect his outfit for the field. 

"Manila, October 6. It is very difficult to 
get hold of any information to go by, for the 
knowledge of the ethnology of the islands is 
yet pretty hazy even in the minds of those 
who are working at it. And others who have 

* Unless otherwise designated, the extracts given are from 
Dr. Jones's letters. 



[ 129] 



WILLIAM JONES 



been about, and should have something to tell, 
are more content with some cock and bull 
tale which in time goes as gospel truth, where- 
upon it then forms a basis of opinion. Some 
army officers can locate places where they 
have seen naked natives, who can fight, and 
who can run to fight again. That is good as 
far as it goes. It is the same old thing we 
have become familiar with in our country: 
army officers have been stationed for years 
among some of our most interesting Indians, 
and yet know nothing about them." 

At last, in that city of conflicting talk, 
Manila, Jones learned his route would lie 
round the north end of Luzon, by sea, to 
Aparri at the mouth of the Cagayan River, 
in Isabela Province; thence up the river, 
southward, among the hills and the wild hill- 
people. 

"Aparri, Nov. 4, 1907. My dear Doctor 
Dorsey: I am leaving for the Abulug River 
west of here, not for work but in company 
with an expedition of inspection. I will re- 
turn in a week and go to the Ilongots south- 
east of Echague at the headwaters of the 
Cagayan. The why and wherefore of this I 
will relate after my return from Abulug. I 
met Cole and found him doing grandly. 
[130] 



THE PHILIPPINES 

"Ilagan, Isabela, Nov, -20. When I sent 
off that hurried note from Aparri I had 
no idea that it would be this long before I 
could get a letter off to you again. When I 
left Vigan after the visit with Cole I met on 
board the boat, bound for Aparri, Mr. Brink, 
the Assistant Director of Education. He was 
on his way to visit the schools of Northern 
Luzon and of the Valley of the Cagayan. He 
asked me to accompany him and his party on 
this tour, and so I accepted the invitation. I 
am glad I did it, because it has enabled me to 
see where I am better than any information I 
have yet been able to derive from written or 
oral source. From Aparri we went to the 
Abulug country. We . . . got as far as the 
Apayaos. Before coming to the Apayaos we 
saw and met mixed blood Negritos. Their 
hair was curly, frizzly, and russet brown. 
Sometimes there was one with the short, 
woolly kink. They squatted together in clus- 
ters, or one behind another. As a rule thev 
were as lean as dry bamboo, and the hags 
were as wrinkled as shrivelled potatoes. They 
were as homely as toads. They bivouacked 
at night under a straw lean-to. . . . The 
sleepers mind the stones and pebbles about 
as much as I do the comfortable bed of a 
[131] 



WILLIAM JONES 

hair mattress. In the morning, about when 
Sirius is rising high enough for the Pawnee to 
lug in eating sweet corn and barbecue in the 
Morning Star rite, a small fire is kindled ; then 
the old man hogs it. He can't circle it, but he 
lies as much around it as he can, and the rest 
hug up wherever they can find room. At 
daylight, or rather when the dawn lightens 
up the Eastern sky, they are astir. They 
were hunting, and so had venison and meat 
to eat. . . . They sing a pretty hum, about 
as loud as the buzz of a humming bird, and 
they dance a pleasing pantomime. In fact the 
girls do a wave of the arm and hand and a 
movement of the body which are very vol- 
uptuous. It was art in the way it was done, 
and in the way it wrought an effect. The 
boys dance a step not unlike a 'hoe-down' 
or 'cutting the pigeon wing.' Beyond the 
Negritos towards Cole's country were the 
Apayaos, a fine looking type of men and 
women. At first sight they remind one of 
our American Indians. I got about two days 
[distant] from Cole. Then we withdrew by 
the path we came, or rather down the river 
up which we came in barangays. A barangay 
is a dug-out with a bamboo floor, and over 
the floor an oval shed of the same material. 
[ 132] 



THE PHILIPPINES 



"My objective point is Echague, where I 
expect to strike out and return to. Worcester 
advised me to select the region over here to 
work in. He suggested that I take up first 
the Ilongots who are south of Echague. These 
people, as you know, are supposed to be 
Malay-Negritos."* 

Two fragments, found long afterward among 
the Doctor's papers, may well be inserted here. 
They indicate the sort of welcome which he, 
as a notable visitor, received in "educational 
circles" at Bangued, Abra, during the travels 
mentioned in the foregoing letter. Senorita 
Lutgarda Astudillo addressed to him the fol- 
lowing speech: 

"Mr. Jones, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

"We the people in Bangued come to bid 
you a hearty welcome our most distinguished 
visitor to our place. We are very glad to see 
you. Perhaps you are anxious too, to see our 
place and the different tribes of people. 

"It is strange for you to see perhaps an 
unknown girl who comes to crown you now 
with a wreath of flowers as a sign of joy we 

* The rest of this letter was filled with cordial praise of a colleague 
then in Northern Luzon, Mr. F. C. Cole of the Field Museum, who, 
Jones said, had "gone after a collection with pretty much the eye 
of a Harrington, the taste of a Simms, and the care of an H. I. Smith." 

[133] 



WILLIAM JONES 



show you. This girl that I mentioned is the 
ninth descendant of the Tinguians. These 
Tinguians were the pioneers of this town. 

"Permit me, then, Mr. Jones, to place this 
wreath of flowers on your thoughtful head. 
It is the custom here to crown our friends 
when they celebrate their birthday and to 
crown distinguished visitors, therefore I place 
this crown upon your head. 

"May you live long and may you be so 
happy in the Philippines that you will never 
want to leave them." 

The learned stranger was then greeted by a 
chorus who knew their "Herald Angels," and 
were not afraid of parody : 

"Hark! the High School class proclaim, 
Jones has come to the Philippines. 
Welcome glad to him we bring, 
Greetings true to him we sing. 
Joyful all ye people rise, 
Join the triumphs of the skies, 
With the High School class proclaim 
Jones has come to the Philippines. 
Hark the High School class proclaim 
Jones has come to the Philippines ! " 

We cannot tell what was passing, at the 
moment, inside that "thoughtful head" un- 
der its floral crown; but we may be sure that 
[134] 



THE PHILIPPINES 



our friend missed no detail in the little 
comedy. 

At Echague, a small "Cristiano" town on 
the Cagayan River, Jones reached his last 
outpost of civilization. The fringe of our 
white man's world is always ragged ; and it was 
without flattery that Jones described what he 
saw there. "This," he wrote from Echague 
in November, 1907, "is the end of things, in 
a way. There are lines of bamboo shacks 
standing each side of the passageway to sug- 
gest streets; there are several Chinese shops, 
dingy and squalid, and a native store here and 
there, more dingy and more squalid than the 
Chinese places. At present I am in the 
quarters of a Lieutenant of the Constabulary, 
and . . . am alone. The Lieutenant is at 
Ilagan, attending court, and may be gone ten 
days. . . . There is one other white man 
in town, but he, too, is gone; or rather, I 
should say, one other American, for there are 
several Spaniards. It is a great place for 
marriages and funerals. One morning there 
were five at one time, all in the Roman Catho- 
lic church, which is a tumble-down af- 
fair. . . . Off one corner at the front is a 
scaffold, and perched aloft is a stand where 
two boys rend the air pounding bells. I al- 
[135] 



WILLIAM JONES 



ways associated the chiming and tolling of 
bells with churches, but since coming out to 
the Islands I find church bells can make pan- 
demonium as well. 

"The padre is a well fed lump of putty, 
with a total lack of spirituality in his look. 
These dispensers of spiritual guidance are a 
queer lot. One night we rode into a barrio, a 
little town part of another, where a church 
fiesta had been going on during the day. 
Arrangements had previously been made to 
have dinner (evening meal) at the house of the 
padre. When we rode up we heard loud talk- 
ing and the opening of bottles. Ascending 
the stairway from the ground, we worked our 
way through a crowd and entered the smok- 
ing room and the sitting room beyond. The 
long table was loaded down with food, and 
Spaniards filling themselves like swine. A 
padre came forward to greet us; he had a 
heavy load, and it was with effort that he 
could steer his course toward us; it was as 
much effort for him to stand. He had on a 
loud talking drunk, and looked like an untidy 
butcher in an untidy butcher shop. The 
white ecclesiastical garb he had on was 
smeared with about everything he had rubbed 
against. . . . The leader of our party was 

[136] 



THE PHILIPPINES 



Mr. B , a fine type of American, not only 

for stature, looks, bearing and dignity, but 
also for character and quality. He is a man 
of theological training ... a Presbyterian, I 
believe. The contrast between these two men 
of God was wide as the east is from the west. 
Another fat padre had a seat at a round 
table, gambling at cards with five or six low- 
born rascals. He made some insulting re- 
mark to a Spaniard, who replied by slapping 
him on the cheek. The revulsion in my mind 
was not so much at the debauchery of the 
two padres as at the thought that it was to 
such as these that so many well disposed peo- 
ple went to confession and sat for spiritual 
guidance, even innocent maidens." 

Christmas in Echague was "like a circus 
day. The pueblo was in gay attire in the 
morning, which was as warm as a July morn- 
ing in Hampton. The church was packed so 
tight that the door was blocked, and a crowd 
waited outside. ... In the afternoon where 
were many cocks slain in the pit, and much 
money lost and won in the fight. The local 
band went to the door of each tienda (shop) 
and played its weird music, in this way beg- 
ging money for the church and getting a 
drink of bino at the same time. In the even- 
[137] 



WILLIAM JONES 



ing the lieutenant and I attended a small dance 
in a room about twelve by twelve. The Span- 
ish dances were pretty. . . . When the Fourth 
of July comes round, imagine it Christmas. 
Then you will have an idea of what Christmas 
is like out here. ... A soldier leaves to- 
morrow, and will take this, God speed him!" 

Soon after New Year's, 1908, Dr. Jones was 
off into the wilds, ready for "the so-called 
unknown" at the head-waters of Rio Grande 
de Cagayan. This stream, which rushes down 
in boulder-broken rapids through jungle from 
the hills, was to be his only guide — indeed, 
for all but the first stage, his only means of 
approach — into a country without maps, with- 
out trails, without a name. Two govern- 
ment officials under escort, and a few Filipino 
traders in fear of their lives, had formerly gone 
as far up as Dumubatu, where, five days of 
hard travel from Echague, rude houses strag- 
gled along the river bank. The traders car- 
ried up red or blue cloth, salt, pots, knives, 
brass wire; they fetched in return wild honey 
and beeswax, coarse mats and tampipis, rice, 
venison, or wild pork; and with these, a little 
information, scant and vague, about the men 
with whom they had bartered, — the Ilongots 
from the high wilderness beyond. These 
[138] 



THE PHILIPPINES 



Ilongots were little naked brownies, with 
crinkly russet hair, and often a crinkly russet 
down of beard; with broad cheeks but narrow 
chins, so that their faces had a cat-like, ef- 
feminate contour: — nervous, vivacious men, 
ready to laugh at nothing, ready to cry; head- 
hunters, armed with wooden shields, light 
spears cruelly barbed, bows and arrows, and 
bolos with deep-bellied blades. They lived 
in transient clearings on the mountain slopes, 
or fishing-camps beside the river, far down 
in gorges of huge white rock overhung with 
jungle, — gorges into which the sun struck 
briefly at noonday, to heat the boulders among 
the rapids, or light a pool where crocodiles 
lay waiting. It was up this river, to find these 
Ilongots, that Dr. Jones started in a season of 
low water, April, 1908. With him went a 
native servant, and Dona his German hound. 
For arms he carried only a Luger pistol, using 
eleven cartridges to the clip. 

"Up the Cagayan, April 10. I am writing 
this at various places and times, in order to 
have it ready when I can catch someone going 
down the river. I left Echague last Sunday 
morning with my man Lorenzo,* Dona, and 

* A Filipino servant, incapable, whose place was afterward better 
filled by Romano Dumaliang. See page 153. 



[139] 



WILLIAM JONES 

two bull carts laden with various kinds of 
plunder, such as chow, note paper and books, 
articles for barter, and clothing. That after- 
noon ... we came to a small barrio called 
Pangal. It lay in among banana trees, and 
was a tempting place to rest. A sick youth 
was down with fever, and I did a little minis- 
tering. The next morning we took three 
basket sleds, each of which was drawn by a 
carabao.* These three took us to another 
town farther up the river called Majatungut. 
We were entertained in the house of the 
teniente (Lieutenant), who corresponds to the 
Mayor of a town in the United States. It was 
full of people, not when we entered, but after 
we entered. I ate eggs, chicken and rice, with 
a host of eyes glued on me and my mouth. I 
have acquired the siesta habit, and so take 
my mid-day sleep. I took it there, and at 
three o'clock we pulled on to the next town, 
called Inamatan, where we put up with an- 
other teniente. This man had a big house, 
and he needed it to hold the multitude of men, 
women, boys, girls, cats, dogs, chickens, hogs 
and carabaos that lived under and round it. 
I know now what a tiger feels like at a show, 
where he is fetched out upon an arena, with 

* Water buffalo. 

[140] 



THE PHILIPPINES 



crowds of faces looking down upon him from 
everywhere. Eyes were riveted on me from 
the moment I entered until I don't know 
when. They were still looking when I fell 
asleep on my cot. The next morning we 
pulled out early, and crossed the river for 
the second time. At a town called Masaya- 
saya . . . the teniente gave me breakfast. In 
another hour we were off, and crossed the 
river again. This time we pulled into a town 
called Quinalabasa, where I was again enter- 
tained by the teniente. A man has suddenly 
shown up who is going to Echague, and so 
this will have to go unfinished — 

"[From the diary.] Saturday, April 11. 
The soldiers * passed on their way to Echague 
this morning. ... I asked [one] about the 
expedition, and this was the brilliant exploit 
performed — that they came to some houses, 
and seeing no people there set fire to the 
houses; then they came back. He said that 
all the people had fled up the river. I asked 
how he knew where they went when he saw 
no one. His reply was a sickly grin and a 
bowed head. 

"The Ilocanos are now certain that it is 
futile for me to try to see the Ilongots. I told 

* Native Constabulary. 

[141] 



WILLIAM JONES 



them to take me near where the first Ilongot 
town is, unload me and my stuff, and then to 
come home as fast as they desire. Lorenzo 
wanted to know what we were going to eat 
and how we were going to live when all alone. 
The question seemed an interesting one to the 
Ilocanos. I answered by saying: let me see 
but a single man; that I would wave a piece 
of red cloth, jingle some bells, and show some 
beads; that this would fetch not only him but 
others. Whereupon laughed the Ilocanos, 
who understand me less now than when I 
first came. 

"[From the diary.] April 15 and 16. We 
found the six Ilocanos and two banquillas in 
waiting. ... It was 8.30 when the polers 
pushed off. . . . The river was pretty low, 
but the men kept to one side or the other be- 
cause in such places it was generally easier 
poling. Rapids became more frequent the 
farther we ascended. . . . All of us got out 
where the rapids were swift, and the Ilocanos 
pulled and pushed the boats over into smooth 
water again. . . . 

"Farther we ascended, more pleasing and 
varied became the scenery. First on one side 
and then on the other the banks rose in walls 
of white rock. ... To the right of a turn 
[ 142] 



THE PHILIPPINES 



in the river beyond were two very deep cav- 
erns in the high walls. A confused rumbling 
went on inside, and now and then a large bat 
would appear at the entry way, and as sud- 
denly vanish into the darkness of the place 
again. 

"The sun went down with the round moon 
high in the eastern sky. Big bats flew over us 
on their way up the river, now dipping, now 
rising. . . . We kept on in the clear moonlight 
till we came to this island in the river. It is 
long and narrow with nothing but rock and 
gravel. We are camped near its upper end, 
just below some swift rapids. The night is 
calm. Some sort of a bird with a whooping 
cry is calling in the jungle. The Filipinos are 
lying on the barren rocks by their fires, the 
Ilocanos near theirs, the Yogads and Lorenzo 
near ours. Bernaldino * said it will be a 
good thing to push on after a little sleep 
so as to arrive among the Ilongots before 
sunrise. . . . 

"We slept till two in the morning, and in 
half an hour were on our journey. I went in 
the banquilla with Bernaldino. The moon 
gave us a clear night to travel by. Surging 

* Bernaldino Panganiban, a trader who had met Dr. Jones by 
chance on the river, and was now guiding him to Dumubatu. 

[143] 



WILLIAM JONES 

low in the southern sky loomed the great 
dragon. Beyond either bank the deer called 
to each other with their bleating bark, and 
now and then rose the plaintive squeak of a 
carabao trying to low. . . 



[144] 



XV 



IN THE WILDS 

"The sun was now up," continues the diary 
on April 16, 1908, "and in a half hour Ber- 
naldino began to halloo and tell who he was 
and with whom he came. He got out near 
where the first house was, but on going up to 
the place found no one there. We made no 
attempt to see anyone at the next place we 
passed, for it was there that the soldiers had 
done their burning; the place is called Alipai- 
yan, and in a grove of palms. In an hour we 
drew up to a place where we could see booth- 
like structures high up on poles about a half 
mile from our left. Presently we beheld peo- 
ple scurrying away, but after much halloo- 
ing Bernaldino succeeded in halting two. He 
went to where they were, and after a short 
talk came back to the river with them follow- 
ing behind. I took them for women at first, 
due partly to their feminine features, light 
build, their walk, and to the way they did 
their hair in a knot at the back of the head. 
But on a nearer view I found them to be 
young men; each had a bow and some arrows 
[145] 



WILLIAM JONES 



in one hand, and in the other some fresh hog 
meat strung in small pieces on bejuco. They 
had just come in from an early morning's 
hunt. Bernaldino had them to wade out to 
the boat where I was and give me their hands. 
As the first extended a finger from the right 
hand which clutched his bow and arrows, he 
used the other to help him beg for the cigarette 
in my lips. His companion came up for the 
same thing, and I let each have a cigarette. 
They hurried back to the shore, where they 
quickly pushed a bamboo raft out into the 
water and poled up-stream behind us; as 
they came, they hallooed to people in the 
jungle on the left, who answered back. In a 
half hour I could make out some houses high 
up on the left bank; and as we drew near 
I could see people appearing by the bank. 
Presently down the trail to the water came a 
man, who took a step or two and then halted; 
then came another hesitatingly ; now two, and 
then others. On their making out Bernaldino 
and hearing the sound of his voice, they got 
courage and came on down to the water. By 
the time we came up about 50 men, women, 
and children were assembled at the landing 
place. 

"Dumubatu, April 16. Please don't ad- 
[146] 



IN THE WILDS 



dress a letter to me at this place, for it will 
never get here! It is far up the Cagayan, at 
least five days from Echague. There is no 
way in but by the river; by that way one goes 
out; when one gets to it one has to wander in 
the jungle to find it. It is the most out-of- 
the-way place I have yet run into out here, 
and probably the people are the wildest. I 
have a nice, cool little house to dwell in. It 
is thatched with palm leaves of the betel nut, 
and stands off the ground about seven feet. 
I have a far view in various directions. There 
is abundant game everywhere around. I wish 
I had a shot gun. The river is full of fish. 

"May 7th. My dear Doctor Dorsey:— 
I've a chance to send this to Echague by a 
Yogad on his way there. May it reach you in 
good season, and find you in the beneficent 
keeping of this pretty good old world. I've 
no idea where you are, save only a vague 
notion that perhaps you may be under the 
cool canvas out upon the deck of some lone 
steamer 'somewheres east of Suez,' or mixing 
in the naked, spindle-legged throng of some 
heat-smitten city in that direction. With the 
notion is a guess that perhaps in the next 
forty days and nights your boat will come 
steaming into Manila Bay. I wish I might 

[147] 



WILLIAM JONES 



be there; but as that cannot be, this goes to 
greet you. 

"I am at present with a group of Ilongots 
living far up the Cagayan, at a place called 
Dumubatu. On the map there is a spot giv- 
ing one the impression that it is a definite 
locality, at least as definite as an Indian vil- 
lage. But don't be deceived thereby. There 
is no such thing as a village. At the particular 
spot where I am stands a house, high up on 
poles and the tall stump of a tree. It is 
thatched with palm leaf. In front is a door- 
way which is connected with a stepladder. 
An opening on one side looks downstream, 
another upstream, the door faces the river. 
The house stands on a high bank which is 
pretty steep. The jungle hides the house 
from the river, but objects on the river are 
easily and quickly seen. This house is con- 
nected with another about a 100 yards 
upstream by a narrow difficult path, with 
another about 200 yards downstream by a 
still worse path. About 100 yards beyond this 
third house is another. It will take a half 
hour to get to the next house downstream. 
By crossing and recrossing the river for two 
hours more, yes three hours or more, but 
keep moving, you can see what constitutes 
[148] 



IN THE WILDS 



Dumubatu. Generally where there is a house 
or two, or possibly three, there is a family of 
people more or less closely related by blood. 
These various units living here and there 
along the river for four or five miles consti- 
tute one political group of Ilongots. An- 
other group lives in the same scattered fashion 
up the river, about a day by balsa from here; 
it is called Panipagan. A short way from 
there is a third, called Kagadyangan. South- 
west of here, but in the hills is a fourth; it is 
called Tamsi. A difficult trail leads to that 
group; a crawl when it leads upwards, a slide 
when it takes a downward course, and a tight 
rope walk over precipices; along some slides, 
one has to claw the rocks and hang on by the 
eyelids, so to speak. These four groups make 
up one division of Ilongots, and are my 
present subjects for study. They are friends, 
and of one culture. Beyond them toward the 
south and west are other Ilongots who are 
their enemies. 

"May 8. It has been many weeks, several 
months, in fact, since I have had any word. . . . 
Can it be that my mail lies in Manila a long 
while before it is forwarded? ... Of course, 
I am out of all communication now save when 
hunters or fishermen come up this way and 

[149] 



WILLIAM JONES 

stop at my place. At present there is a man 
and his son, two Yogads, who belong down 
the river, who are visiting me. The father 
returns to-morrow, and will take this. . . . 
I have been very fortunate so far in being able 
to send out word. It will be a little more 
difficult as I proceed up the river and get 
deeper in the mountains. I am having an 
easy time as things usually go. I have plenty 
to eat, and live in a pleasant shack, and have 
the Uongots friendly towards me. My food 
is eggs, chicken, wild hog, venison, bananas, 
sweet potatoes and — what else do you think? 
Can you guess? Can you shut your eyes be- 
fore going further down the page? Well, it is 
wild honey, which my friends bring me in 
bamboo tubes. It is clear honey, and most 
pleasant to my tongue and palate. ... I 
fetched along two boxes of hard-tack, each box 
weighing twenty-five pounds; and nothing is 
better than eating several hard-tacks crushed, 
with the crumbs swimming in honey! Of 
course, I always have rice, but it gets a little 
monotonous. ... I forgot to mention fish, 
which is so abundant in the river. Sometimes 
I have a wild dove or pigeon. I never saw 
such big ones; about the size of a crow, some 
are. . . . 

[150] 



IN THE WILDS 



"My house is unlike any you have ever 
seen. It stands high up off the ground on 
poles. It has one room, and a hearth in two 
corners, one diagonally opposite the other. 
The walls reach up to your waist, and the 
roof then begins from all four sides and meets 
at a point above. The roof is thatched with 
palm. My floor is a screen of bejuco splints. 
The walls are bamboo screens. I have three 
openings; one is a door, the others are win- 
dows. Leading up to my door is a stepladder, 
which my friends pull in or throw down at 
night . . . for I always have one or more 
Ilongots. They like to come, and so I let 
them. They sleep on the floor, according to 
custom, and always have a fire burning on the 
hearth, to keep them warm. The weather 
has been insufferably hot, ... so from ten 
o'clock in the morning until about three or 
four in the afternoon, I remain in the shade 
of my cool shack, with always visitors in. I 
am beginning to talk a little Ilongot, not 
enough to hurt; but my speech is growing 
day by day. The rains have begun to set 
in. ... If this paper is a bit smelly, it is 
because of the smoke from a roasting frame, 
where I am having a pile of venison cured. . . . 

"May 25. An American by the name of 
[151] 



WILLIAM JONES 



Biltz is visiting me, and returns down the 
river in a day, taking this with him to mail. 
He is the school teacher at Mayoyao. I be- 
came well acquainted with him among the 
Igorotes. He came up simply to see me, eat 
some fish and venison, and while away a part 
of his vacation. At the same time he came to 
fetch me a few necessities, things to eat, and 
junk for barter. ... I am still at what is 
called Dumubatu, but I am expecting any 
time to go upstream to a place called Pani- 
pagan, an Ilongot place. It is not on the map, 
and there is no other road to the place but 
the river. I shall go up on a balsa, a raft of 
bamboo poles laid lengthwise. ... It has a 
little platform to sit on, and the raft is poled 
by two men. I have about 250 pounds or 
more of impedimenta, which will be distributed 
among other balsas. 

"I dislike the idea of leaving my house, 
which I have become very much attached to, 
and these wild people have told me that I 
must not go; but if I do, to be sure to return 
as soon as possible. . . . My house is high 
up, but then it is low compared with others. 
When it is crowded with my little brown 
friends it becomes a little shaky. The people 
at Panipagan are preparing a house for 
[152] 



IN THE WILDS 



me, and will come for me as soon as it is 
done. . . . 

" [Diary.] Thursday, June 30 — I gave red 
cloth, salt, needles and thread to my friends, 
and I have provisions to last indefinitely. 
Joaquin [a trader] came this noon with a 
box of stuff. . . . He seemed in a tremendous 
hurry, and said he was going back to Dumu- 
batu. ... In the party was one named 
Romano * who evidently came with the idea 
of staying with me; for he had clothes for that 
purpose. He speaks a little English, and was 
recommended to me by his companions. I 
will give him a trial. 

"About July 12, 1908. My dear Smith:— 
Your letter came to me some time ago; but 
at the time, as I still am, I was out of all 
communication with the big world. When 
you know this, you will be a little indulgent 
with me for not having sent you a letter 
sooner. You have my sympathy in the be- 
reavement of the death of your father. It is 
late getting to you, but it is as sincere as if it 
had gone to you months ago. 

"Look on the map of Luzon and find the 

* Romano Dumaliang, of Echague; a youth of seventeen years, 
who remained a loyal servant to Dr. Jones. As will be seen later, he 
played the man at a crisis. 

[153] 



WILLIAM JONES 



crooked line representing the Cagayan River. 
Find the dot marking the place of the town of 
Echague. Then follow the course of the River 
upstream to somewhere in the neighborhood 
of Southern Isabela Province, and you will 
get a general location of about where I am. 
The region is unknown, and the present map- 
ping of it is based largely on pipe dreams. 
I am sojourning with a Negrito-Malay people 
called Ilongots, who dwell in lofty booths on 
poles and in the forks of trees. The native 
name of the place where I am at present is 
called Kagadyangan. It is on a mountain; 
and commands a sweeping view of large 
spaces up and down the River and far and 
wide on each side. The River winds between 
high walls of white rock in places along here; 
and in the shelters of these walls the Ilongots 
often dwell for long periods at a time when 
they want to live on fish and pass an easy life. 
Back on the hillsides behind some of the 
shelters are clearings where the people raise 
camote, cane and rice. This shows that some 
of the shelters are more or less permanent 
dwelling places. The houses are thatched 
with long grass or with palm leaves. They 
are floored with bejuco splint. 

"I live in these houses with them, am with 
[154] 



IN THE WILDS 



them on hikes, hunts, and fishing. I behold 
them in all sorts of moods — when happy and 
sad, contented and dissatisfied, hungry and 
sated with food, sober and drunk, generous 
and stingy, and so on. Think of the lousiest 
Indians you've ever seen, and you will have 
a partial notion of how lousy my friends 
are. . . . Society is pretty simple, and gov 
ernment is largely according to custom. They 
raise rice, corn, squash, beans, tomato, greens, 
tobacco, bananas, gabi, and some other things 
in timbered clearings. They hunt deer and 
wild hog with the bow and arrow, and use nets 
and traps for catching fish. They hunt in 
parties and with dogs. After a killing the 
meat is divided equally all round. They raise 
chickens, and here and there a wild hog is 
penned and fattened, either under the house 
or close by. I've met one woman who makes 
a rude kind of pottery. She told me she 
learned it from her mother. She is a gray- 
haired, wrinkled old woman of about sixty. 
As far as I can learn she is the only woman 
among this particular group of Ilongots who 
makes pottery. The people boil food in pots 
as they do in iron kettles, and over as big a 
fire. 

"My friends wear no footgear. The women 
[ 155 ] 



WILLIAM JONES 



wear a short skirt of one piece of cloth, and 
the men a narrow clout to hide their naked- 
ness. They file the front teeth, and do a little 
tattooing. They take heads, breast-bone, 
heart, and a finger from a slain enemy, but 
do not keep any of these things as trophies. 
They have few formal ceremonies, though 
they do many things ceremonially. 

"This is a rough, random sketch of some of 
the things these people do. I expect to con- 
tinue with them four or five months longer, and 
then I will go to another region of probably 
the same people. Then after that I hope to 
pay some attention to Negritos not in con- 
tact with Malays, or with those rather who 
are not so very much in contact with Malays. 
Those that I've seen live in their peculiar 
kind of way but speak Malay. 

"I've been very well thus far. Of course 
I've been in the highlands pretty much all the 
time. And before coming to this neck of the 
woods I was among the Igorotes. Give us a 
little time and you can come to Chicago to 
study Philippine ethnology! And when Lau- 
fer comes home from Thibet, there will be 
some more. We are going some, don't you 
think? 

"My trip oversea was uneventful, but my 
[156] 



IN THE WILDS 



two weeks in Japan is still a pleasing dream. 
That land has had good press agents, and they 
have accomplished what they set out to do, 
but in their accounts of art, temples, and war, 
they forget to tell much about the people. 
True, there is much beauty in Japan, but 
there is a good deal of the other thing. Cos- 
tume is odd, architecture quaint, language 
unintelligible, manners highly conventional; 
all these things have deeply impressed the 
European, and he has accordingly written 
about them, and generally from a distorted 
point of view. Forget the idea that all Japs 
are brave. I saw a boat load of panic stricken 
people one day near Tokyo, and their wild 
behavior changed my former impressions con- 
siderably. And it seems a mistaken notion 
to speak of Japan as a young nation. She is 
an ancient land, and the marks of it are 
everywhere. 

"Well, this is enough for now. It's your 
turn to talk. Tell me about yourself, what 
you are doing, about the New York Museum 
of Natural History, and other things in gen- 
eral. How is Wissler? Remember me kindly 
to him. Say to him that I will write him one 
of these days. Say howdy to Mead and 
Orchard. Is Happy Bob still around with his 

[157] 



WILLIAM JONES 



dust broom in hand? Good old Bob! Don't 
forget to say a kind word to the Demings, 
Mr. Hall, and to Mr. Frazer. 

"Remember me to Mrs. Smith and the 
girls. 

"July 14, 1908. Kagadyangan. The peo- 
ple came down to Dumubatu with their 
balsas (bamboo rafts), and brought me and 
my impedimenta. In two days we reached 
Panipagan. We should have reached the 
place sooner, but the men wanted to catch 
fish. They caught the fish with nets which 
were thrown from the balsas. One man 
stands in front and the other drives the balsa 
into position. With many balsas it is pretty 
certain that fish can be got. It w T as great fun, 
and they enjoyed it pretty much all the way. 
They kept at it even at night. The moon was 
big and bright, and we had many fish to eat. 
Some women were along. They did not throw 
the nets, but they helped push the balsas. 
They are strong, like Indian women, from 
continual w r ork. I was at Panipagan but 
about two w^eeks. I lived in the house of the 
head man. He was extremely hospitable, and 
I never lacked for food . . . but the house 
was alive with roaches, and they got into 
everything. The people hated to see me 

[158] 



IN THE WILDS 



leave, but I had to get out of that house. . . . 
The town was full of sick, lame, halt and 
whatnot. I gained something of a reputation 
as a healer, and the people have an idea I can 
perform miracles. I have had wonderful luck 
in one or two instances, and am on the wave 
of popular approval. When it came time for 
me to come here I had willing hands to carry 
my impedimenta. The carriers were mostly 
women, or rather the w^omen carried the 
heaviest packages and the men the light, easy 
ones. It was no easy work for the women 
either, for after crossing the river it was a 
long climb up a steep mountain. I made 
payments in cloth; the amount was a fathom, 
that is, the distance between the hands when 
the arms are held out. It was regarded as big 
pay! and both sides were pleased, they and I. 
I gave a handful of salt to all around, and that 
added joy to pleasure. Salt is a great thing 
to have, and with it I've got much food. I 
have read of salt being used as money, but 
never before appreciated how valuable it 
could be. 

"The country is wonderful here, the most 
picturesque of any that I've yet come upon. 
The river winds through places where the 
banks are of solid rock; the walls rise several 
[159] 



WILLIAM JONES 



times higher than the church tower at Hamp- 
ton. The mountains are wooded, and in ap- 
pearance are not unlike the mountains of 
New England. The river has almost an east 
and west course through this particular region, 
and in consequence one ridge after another 
can be seen afar. Down the ridges from the 
east pours the light in the morning, and from 
the others at the west it lingers at evening 
time. At night the Cross hangs in the south- 
ern sky, rather low and not long visible. 

"About August 8, 1908. Dear Bill: Your 
letter written on the 9th of January found 
me on the 26th of July. I can give you but 
a general idea about where I was at the time 
and where I am now. If you look on the map 
for the Cagayan River of Luzon and follow 
the crooked line of the River into what is 
supposed to represent the mountains of South- 
ern Isabela Province, you can say that some 
place in there is where I am. The country is 
unknown, and so the mapping of it is based 
largely on the pipe dreams of first the Spanish 
and then our haughty officers. I am sojourn- 
ing among a wild naked folk generally called 
Ilongots. They are a mixed race of Negritos 
and Malays. The Negritos are pigmy blacks, 
and the Malay you probably have heard more 
[160] 



IN THE WILDS 

about. Taft calls the latter " our little brown 
brothers," but few Americans are yet ready 
to accept the relationship, especially when 
it refers to the Cristiano Filipino. The Ilon- 
gots inhabit isolated spots along the sources 
and head waters of the Cagayan and the 
mountains on both sides. A district where 
a given group lives has a name. When your 
letter came to me I was at what is called 
Kagadyangan; it was on the Cagayan. I am 
now at a place called Tamsi. It is west of the 
River and in the mountains. You won't find 
these names on the maps because the makers 
of maps know nothing about them yet. Your 
letter was fetched with a bunch of other mail 
by some Filipinos who came to trade with 
these Ilongots. These Filipinos follow in my 
wake; they have been doing it since I came 
among these people. They were afraid to do 
it before. They fetch salt, cheap cloth, knives, 
and pots. They get in return chickens, bees- 
wax, wild honey, mats, baskets, and various 
sorts of foods. Some are here now, and when 
they start for Echague, Isabela, I will give 
them this to take there to mail. Your letter 
was delayed at the Bureau of Science by a 
self-conscious clerk. It takes about three 
weeks of steady travelling to go from here to 

[ 161 ] 



WILLIAM JONES 



Manila. Though it is not far as the crow 
flies. 

"I am living a pleasant existence. My 
happiness would be increased by the posses- 
sion of a good rifle and a shot gun. I've a 
Luger revolver which is the prettiest arm I've 
ever had; it shoots with tremendous velocity 
but it has no stopping power except when it 
catches the recipient where he lives. I was 
very foolish when I left the States by faith- 
fully following the advice of Philippine offi- 
cials whom I met out there, men who claimed 
to know the islands and the conditions pre- 
vailing here. So I left my equipments that I 
had in the northern woods. The out of door 
life here is unlike anything we have at home, 
and the wild man here is not the camper that 
the Indian is. But we get along pretty well. 
On the hunt and hike I take more pains with 
my sleeping place. I do it in the Indian way, 
and let them sit up the greater portion of the 
night hugging their tiny little fire, so small 
that my hat could almost cover it. These 
people take no particular pleasure in a night. 
It is a period of time the sooner over with the 
better. They do as much if not more sleeping 
by day. 

"But when I'm in a given district for some 
[162] 



IN THE WILDS 

time, I live more comfortably than among 
Indians. Their houses are bamboo structures 
thatched with long grass or palm leaf. They 
stand high on lofty poles or in the forks and 
branches of trees. The Ilongot is not at peace 
with all the world, and so his dwelling serves 
the purpose also of a watch tower or fort. It 
always commands all possible approach, and 
often commands a view of large distances. 
With the kind of warfare these people wage 
against their enemies, it is a difficult house to 
get to. The long ladder leading up to the 
entry way is either pushed down or pulled in 
at night. At dusk the people often set sharp 
pointed bamboo sticks in the ground round 
about the house, planting them thick and 
setting them to point in every direction. The 
points are so sharp that they are deep in the 
foot or leg of a trespasser before he knows 
what he has run into. They are the best 
'keep off the premises' signs that I've ever 
seen. When Taft says that peace reigns 
throughout the islands, wink the other eye. 
I'm in an ideal spot, far from officials of any 
sort. And it is given me the pleasure of seeing 
a whole lot of things at close hand. You know 
the saying about the mice when the old cat 
is somewhere else. 

[163] 



WILLIAM JONES 

"I've never been in a place where deer 
were so many; but venison is not the refresh- 
ing bite as at home. Do you know the wild 
carabao, sometimes called the wild buffalo? 
That animal offers the best sport of anything 
out here. It is a fighter all the time, will often 
give chase like the grizzly on general princi- 
ples. It's all day with a man if he wounds one 
and the animal is between him and a tree or a 
place of refuge. I had the great pleasure of 
killing a whopper one day. It would take 
pages to tell of the thrilling joy an Uongot 
and I had in doing it. I caught the animal 
below but a little back of the horn on the right 
side, and it dropped like lead. I used a dum- 
dum and the ball lodged in the brain. It was 
great sport, and about 200 of us ate nothing 
but carabao for three days. I can't describe 
the meat. It is reddish like beef salted down; 
rather strong tasting and is far less delectable 
than beef, buffalo, moose, and caribou. Wild 
hog is the best of game meats, wild chicken is 
the best of birds, and the big dove the next. 
The Ilongots supply me with camote — a kind 
of coarse sweet-potato, wild tomatoes about 
the size of large marbles, bananas of various 
flavors, — from sweet to those that taste like 
squash, — rice, wild honey, and a few other 
[164] 



IN THE WILDS 



foods. Thus you see I am not quite starving. 
Yet despite this variety, I'd like now and then 
something I've been brought up on. It 
doesn't quite reach the creases between the 
ribs, it doesn't give bottom, as we say in the 
west. They have a soupy drink called basi. 
It is made from sugar cane and looks and 
tastes like bad vinegar. It is a stand-off be- 
tween basi and beer in the matter of putting 
one in the proper mental and physical state. 
If one can drink much beer, one can drink 
much basi, and vice versa perhaps. After a 
big killing, or a big catch of fish, or when 
entertaining visitors, much basi flows. It be- 
gins to run about an hour before meal time, 
continues throughout the eating, and after if 
any is left. That is the time my friends tell 
me how much they love me, what a good man 
I am, how sorry they will be when we part, 
and some more idle talk. Of course like peo- 
ple elsewhere they find it convenient to forget 
all about what they have said when they have 
slept off the effects. 

"... I am due [in Manila] about January. 
It will be for a brief stay, to ship away some 
stuff to the Chicago Museum, reequip, clean 
up, and see how much English I still know. I 
may go over to Hong Kong to do some of this. 
[165] 



WILLIAM JONES 



"I haven't the least idea what is going on 
in the big world beyond the mountains. I am 
wondering who the men are that have been 
nominated by the big parties, who won the 
track and field sports, baseball, and the boat 
race. Are the Japs still Cocky? 

"This would have been still longer, but I 
find the man who is going to Echague is soon 
leaving. So here go all sorts of big wishes for 
you and Henry and the Colonel. I'm glad 
you showed them the other letter, and you 
may do the same with this, and others, if they 
find it worth while reading. 

"Tamsi, August 21. [Diary.] Inamon * 
has the following account of the way he 
slaughtered a house full of people in Sinadipan. 
There were a number in the party, and they 
divided themselves into five to take in the 
five houses they were to attack. The house 
he went to happened to be full — three men 
and several women. The men lay asleep about 
one hearth. He disposed of two with ease, 
the first as he lay asleep. The sound of 
his grunt woke a man who lay next to the 
corner of the house. As he rose Inamon 

* Inamon, the Kapunwan or capitan of Tamsi, a local hero in 
whose house Dr. Jones was then staying. Note this creature's be- 
havior during the typhoon, pages 174 and 175. 

[166] 



IN THE WILDS 



dealt him a blow on the head, splitting it 
open above the forehead. A man who lay 
on one side of the hearth gave him much 
trouble; by him he was wounded on the lower 
arm and wrist. It was not till he had chopped 
his lower arm and knocked his bolo aside that 
he finally disposed of him. He ripped up a 
woman. . . . He grabbed a child that called 
to its father and dissevered its hand. He 
slew the women about the hearth as they 
screamed in terror. He said that when he 
finished the blade of his bolo was as dull as 
the back. When he had finished, he called to 
his companions to come over and cut off the 
heads. 

"About August 25, 1908. My dear Dr. 
Boas: I am writing from the country of the 
Ilongots at a place in the mountains of South- 
ern Isabela ... an Ilongot district called 
Tamsi. It lies in the mountains, a day's 
journey afoot west of the Cagayan River. . . . 
There is nominal peace among the four dis- 
tricts, but it is not of a kind to establish much 
confidence. Individuals of one district will 
kill any individual of another if the oppor- 
tunity is given; and in turn these same in- 
dividuals are marked for slaughter by all of 
the others. Dumubatu is on pretty good 

[ 167 ] 



WILLIAM JONES 



terms with all the other three districts. 
Panipagan and Kagadyanan are intimate. 
It seems desirable to have some enemies, and 
so there is no attempt to have peace with 
places like Kabinanan, Ifugu, and others up 
the River, and with others off toward the 
west in the direction of Nueva Vizcaya. . . . 

"Village life as I know it in America is 
wholly absent. . . . The dwellings here at 
Tamsi are nearer together than at the other 
places. As a rule here on the high slope of a 
mountain stands a dwelling in the midst of a 
clearing of deadened trees left standing. On 
one side may be a dense growth of sugar cane 
with the camote patch near at hand; on the 
other is the ground where the corn had stood 
but is now green with growing rice. . . . 
Another dwelling stands yonder, farther down 
the mountain, in the midst of another group 
of white and gray barren trees. Down at the 
foot of the mountain is a third. ... A thin 
trail leads from one dwelling to another. On 
coming to a brook, it may come up immedi- 
ately on the other side or not be found again 
for some distance up or down the stream. 
The bed of a stream is often the best way to 
travel. 

"The dwellings stand off the ground. . . . 
[168] 



IN THE WILDS 

The older dwellings are pretty filthy dens and 
are full of ants and roaches. A heavy line of 
deer and hog skulls and jawbones hang from 
the top girders of the older houses. They are 
not trophies. They are kept because it is 
said that if thrown away the hunter will not 
have good luck in hunting. Low structures 
are set on the ground for the people to flee 
into in times of heavy wind. . . . 

"... Night to these people is not a period 
of time to be especially enjoyed. Not long 
after they lie down to sleep, some one be- 
comes chilled and so rises to feed the fire that 
has burned low. Another rises, and then an- 
other, till at last round about the fire they sit, 
chewing betel nut and talking and laughing. 
Then one by one they fall back to sleep, only 
to rise again later, repeating this over and over 
till the break of day. Then up they rise one 
at a time, and sit as if fixed to their seats. 
When not gazing blankly into space, they are 
scratching their lousy heads; for of all the 
lousy people that I've ever seen these are the 
lousiest. As if by accident, some one finally 
rises to the feet. Another catches the sug- 
gestion, and in the course of an hour they are 
all off to their various occupations. Any 
time between eight and ten the women return 

[169] 



WILLIAM JONES 

with rice and camote; and if the men have 
gone to hunt or fish and have been lucky 
they come with what they've got. As soon 
as these things are cooked, the first meal of 
the day is eaten. . . . 

"They hunt deer and hog with the bow 
and arrow. . . . The game must pass within 
twenty yards for a man to be certain of hit- 
ting it; even then his arrow often flies wide. 
Most of the marksmanship I've seen thus far 
would be poor shooting among Indians. An 
Ilongot is content to have the arrow hit any- 
where; the point of the arrow is that of a 
harpoon with a thong attached to the shaft; 
this shaft becomes caught in a tangle of grass 
or in the thicket, and then the victim is held 
until the dogs come up and bring it to bay. . . . 

"They fight with the bow and arrow, spear, 
bolo, and shield. . . . They cut off the head 
of the slain, chop out the bosom, bone and 
all, down to the lowest ribs; cut out the heart, 
and dissever a finger. . . . The companions 
of the slayer hack the body with bolos to gain 
second honors. The slayer wears the beak 
of the red-bill standing out from the forehead 
with prongs of wood reaching overhead. His 
companions wear the tail feathers of a rooster 
in a tuft on the head. But in either case the 
[170] 



IN THE WILDS 



man must be unmarried, otherwise he does 
not wear the symbols. 

"... There is a great deal of singing. 
One class of songs is sung when chopping in 
the clearings, another when planting, and so 
on with other activities like hunting, fighting, 
putting babes to sleep, and praying. In fact 
about all the songs I've heard are prayers. 
I've heard none sung merely for fun; it sur- 
prises me in view of the fact that this folk is 
so light-minded. . . . 

"... The Ilongot easily gives expression 
to his emotions. He is a loud talker and 
is fond of animated conversation. He will 
break in on a man who is talking, drown him 
under with a louder voice. In an assembly 
all try to talk at the same time; it is a din of 
confused voices. They use much gesture and 
exclamation, and follow it up with facial and 
eye expression. When these seem inadequate 
in telling of an incident considered interesting 
they will act it out in pantomime. It is not 
the fashion to practice restraint. I've never 
seen a people more given to nonsense; they 
swing into it without any effort whatever. 
They laugh as loud as they talk. Their wit 
runs on things obscene, the favorite kind on 
sex and the sexual desires. They cry easily. 

[ 171 ] 



WILLIAM JONES 



They readily lie down before an obstacle that 
seems formidable. I have seen little that 
would make me think that they ever steal. 
But they lie as easily as they breathe. It was 
at first annoying to have them smile good 
naturedly when I caught them in a barefaced 
lie. They say it is nothing, that it is the way 
with all men everywhere. On the other hand 
they condemn those who lie to them. . . . 

"About August 25. . . . I am glad my 
Fox texts are finally out. I am getting some 
complimentary notices from my co-workers.* 
My Ojibway will be much better if I ever 
finish that work. A man is here to take my 
letters to Echague. That is great luck. . . . 

"Tamsi, October 4-10. [Diary.] The night 
was very w T arm, despite the rain that fell 
at intervals from dusk till this morning. At 
about seven it began to rain rather heavily. 
At the same time a northwest wind began to 
blow f . . . with increasing velocity. ... As 

* One of these wrote: "Your Fox texts have come to hand, and 
everyone who sees them is delighted. They are the first collection 
of Indian stories I have ever been able to read through at a sitting 
merely for the fun of the thing. You have certainly set a new stand- 
ard of rendering, which those not thoroughly acquainted with an 
Indian language will find it impossible to follow, and those who have 
such knowledge will find it difficult to equal." 

t Three typhoons swept over Tamsi between October 4 and Octo- 
ber 15, 1908. 

[172] 



IN THE WILDS 

the wind increased, limbs began to crack and 
fall; here and there down crashed a deadened 
tree. At the sound of the roar of the wind 
and at the sight of the falling timber, people 
began to leave their houses and to betake 
themselves to the low storm shelters. They 
carried out their pots, baskets, weapons, and 
other petty possessions. The pots they laid 
on the ground out of range of any possible 
falling tree; the rest they took into the shel- 
ters. Inamon and Lima waited for Romano 
and me, but as we seemed slow in starting 
they began to be excited. . . . Inamon began 
to grow peevish. His behavior showed him 
to be very much frightened. Presently he 
began to scold his wife . . . and hurled ugly 
epithets at his little daughter. ... I then 
told him and his wife to go. I had Romano 
put the bags and effects into shape and then 
to follow. ... I stayed partly to see the 
wonderful scene that was taking place. The 
mountains dip into a hollow north of Tamsi, 
and through this gap the wind was rushing. 
The course of the w^ind was from the north- 
west, and it came with a roar like that of a 
railway train over a bridge. Throughout the 
clearings the limbs were snapping and trees 
were falling. At every heavy crash the women 

[173] 



WILLIAM JONES 

set up a wail for the rice that was being de- 
stroyed. Finally I had to give up dodging 
the wood that came flying about where I 
stood, and join the people in the shelters. . . . 
By noon the wind was playing havoc. . . . 
When I went from one shelter to another the 
rain cut my face like hail. ... It was with 
an effort that I could keep my feet. . . . The 
wives and mothers of the absent hunters kept 
wailing, saying that they were slain by the 
storm. All the women wailed for the rice, 
cane, and fruit in the fields. The wailing was 
not loud but in low tones, sometimes with 
tears and as often without. The men wailed 
in the same tone, but what they said was gen- 
erally a complaint against the storm. The 
shelters were dark enough inside even when 
an end was open, but when both ends were 
closed tight, it was as black as night there. . . . 
The people could not stand the sight of what 
was going on outside. And when a crash was 
heard they would cover their faces and 
wail. ... I went down to a shelter where 
Inamon was, when the storm was pushing 
over the granaries and sending down big trees. 
He sat hugging a few coals that were almost 
dead; he shivered as if he were suffering from 
cold; but as a matter of fact he was much 
[174] 



IN THE WILDS 



frightened. His manner somehow struck me 
as funny, and I broke out into laughter. 
* Don't laugh, don't laugh!' he exclaimed. 
6 This is no time to laugh. We shall surely 
die.' Presently I pulled out a cigarette and 
also gave him one. He would not light his. 
Presently he said with much emotion — 'Do 
fling that away. It troubles me to see you 
smoking. It angers the storm. Don't you 
hear it rage louder when you smoke?' I did 
as he asked, and he was much relieved. The 
lamentations and cries going on at different 
places close about me, showed me that I was 
in a cluster of shelters. . . . Mothers, wives, 
and sisters were weeping for the absent who 
had gone into the mountains to hunt. 'Alas, 
Dinampul is dead, he is dead!' wailed Alan. 
And in this wise wept others. And the men 
groaned in a low quavering tone. . . . 

"I had a rather sleepless time where I was. 
The place was crowded, the smoke was thick, 
and the naked folk smelt. Mice persistently 
nibbled on my shoes or on the belt and 
holster of my revolver, which I used for a 
pillow. And so I spent much of the time 
watching the fire and the tangle of naked legs 
that stuck out on all three sides of the hearth. 
The dogs had the other side. . . . 

[175] 



WILLIAM JONES 



"The unkind weather seems to have taken 
the life out of the people. . . . They keep 
whining. . . . They seem ready to lie down 
and quit. . . . Since the foul weather set in 
this house has been a general gathering place 
for the greater part of Tamsi. The people 
come out of their shelters and lounge about 
in here till after the morning meal. When 
their bellies are filled they depart. Their 
aspect is most repelling. Hands, faces, and 
bodies are smeared with blotches of various 
kinds of dirt; and their stiff hair is dishevelled. 
As they sit and scratch their lousy selves they 
seem more like beasts than human beings. 
These women suckle puppies. I saw one 
woman giving suck to two, one at a time, 
while she wove a bag and gossiped with an- 
other woman. 

"Tamsi, November 11. Blue skies have 
appeared once more and the mountain brooks 
are running with clear water. This gives me 
a hope that the Cagayan is becoming shallow 
enough to permit Filipino traders to come up 
and trade again. Therefore I am writing this 
to have it ready for the first party that drops 
in. It has been many weeks since I sent my 
last letter. . . . 

"Alikod, January 4, 1909. See the time 

[176] 



IN THE WILDS 

that has elapsed since I wrote the last sen- 
tence at Tamsi. I waited to finish the letter 
when some one would take it to Echague, but 
days, then weeks, finally months passed; and 
I was alone with my naked brown friends. 
Rains came, not in silent, gentle, soothing 
showers, but in torrents and loads; it con- 
tinued night and day, day and night. The 
brooks filled, and the great River became 
swollen. No one could come to or go from 
where I was. I had no knowledge of what 
was going on where people read papers and 
wrote letters. Last evening a messenger came 
from the Constabulary officer at Ilagan in 
command of the district, to find out where 
and how I was. He came with a bundle of 
mail. In it was a bunch of lovely letters. . . . 

"Alikod, Nueva Vizcaya, probably Janu- 
ary 4, 1909. — My dear Dorsey : If I had known 
or had some sort of word that you were to be 
at Echague and would probably not come up 
because of the high water, I would have taken 
to the mountains, then into the plain, with 
my Ilongots and gone to see you. I ought to 
have foreseen some such event, because I 
could have done it and at the same time 
helped you to meet your dates farther on 
en route. My men would have had to run 
[ 177] 



WILLIAM JONES 



the chance of a scrap with their enemies, but 
that's part of the game and that is why I'm 
sitting in. I wanted you to come to the 
Ilongot country and see the people and their 
stamping ground, because I take them to be 
the wildest Malays in Luzon. If you had got 
here I would have seen you safely back to 
Echague by the overland route. It would 
have been stiff hiking, a little slow, but noth- 
ing more. . . . Your Lalloc letter of Octo- 
ber 8 . . . came to me last night by a mes- 
senger whom Captain Bowers sent to find 
out where and how I was. When it began to 
set in and rain in lively earnest I gave you up, 
because the river went up to its widest banks, 
packed up my impedimenta and came on to 
Alikod. I may be able to get to Ifugu, 2 days 
farther up, because Alikod is keen to take me 
there. If I can go the visit will be but for a 
few days, because I want to gather up my 
stuff and take it to Manila at the first op- 
portunity. ... It takes a long time to move 
along the line I'm going, because the districts 
are so afraid of each other. . . . 

"I am sorry Cole had to go home. I'll stay 
and see what I can do. ... I believe the 
culture of these so-called wild tribes of the 
Islands will go fast, and what is especially 

[178] 



IN THE WILDS 



needed are men who know how to collect. 
Take these people, for example. When I first 
came among them, you had to hunt for the 
one who had commercial cloth; bark cloth 
was abundant. Filipino traders followed in 
my wake, and now they all have cloth. They 
had no matches when I came; they used noth- 
ing but flint and steel. I had a time to find a 
man using flint and steel when I came away 
from Tamsi. This is a far off place where I 
am now, and I am making my fire collection 
before the river goes down and the Filipinos 
arrive. If it were possible for these people 
to have guns, the story would be the same; 
their bows and various kinds of arrows would 
go enseguida. I believe as soon as head hunt- 
ing is put down it will be difficult to get good 
spears, shields, and the various accompani- 
ments. . . . 

"Alikod, January 8. . . . You see fair 
weather is coming on once more, and at such 
a time the young Ilongot's fancy turns to 
longings for a head. The young bucks are 
especially anxious to go. Let me tell you of 
an experience I had when Bowers's messenger 
fetched me my stuff. His carriers were mostly 
from Panipagan, a place which owes Alikod 
five heads. The next night the Alikod youths 
[179] 



WILLIAM JONES 



implored me to let them carry out their heart- 
felt wish and take the six or eight heads 
which were in their midst. They wanted to 
do it while the Panipagan folk were asleep. 
But it would have been a cold blooded mur- 
der; and the visitors were guests in my house; 
they were people whose hospitality I had en- 
joyed, and therefore I could not stand for 
what Alikod asked. But I obtained a deal of 
first hand knowledge on what these people 
call warfare. 

"Alikod, January 18. I've just returned 
from Ifugu. It was an entertaining trip, 
profitable in some particulars and disappoint- 
ing in others. Without my knowledge, Alikod 
had sent for Inamon, the head man of Tamsi 
and reputed one of the best fighters among 
all the Ilongots. I got a force of 25 eager 
young bucks and they got 3 women to carry 
the chow. It delighted their hearts when I 
put them under the command of Inamon, 
which was exactly what they wanted. You 
should have beheld that bunch of men, armed 
with all their fighting material and keen for a 
scrap. We did not see a soul in Kabinanan 
territory. We spent one night on the road 
when fires signalled round about us. The 
thrill was exhilarating, but we were not mo- 
[180] 



IN THE WILDS 



lested. That day and night, the cautious, 
picturesque manner with which we moved 
next morning into Ifugu, gave me many a 
detail of the way these people fight. You'll 
hear it all one of these days. Well, we got 
into Ifugu without a fight. Festivities fol- 
lowed, the most interesting being the making 
of peace between Ifugu and Alikod. Some 
Kabinanan people were there; they sought 
shelter in Ifugu, and it was well they did, I 
saw my first head ceremony, but the head 
was not there. My Filipino * was scared out 
of his wits, and was afraid that I was coming 
to Ifugu with my stuff. f I would, but must 
turn back downstream because it is too slow 
moving along this way; furthermore my col- 
lection is gathering and I am compelled to 
keep it with me. . . . 

"If I could move according to my desire I 
would have my collection at the Museum by 
this time. Travelling from district to district 
is exceedingly slow, and I am dependent en- 
tirely on the disposition of my hosts. Did 
Bowers tell you how he got as far as Tamsi, 
and could get no farther? He would not have 
got as far as that if it had not been for me. 

* Romano Dumaliang, see page 153. 
t I.e., to set up headquarters at Ifugu. 

[ 181 ] 



WILLIAM JONES 



Climatic conditions hinder me less. Bear in 
mind that I am moving as fast as conditions 
will permit. It is not like among the Igorot 
where there are trails. There are no trails 
here. 

" Kagadyangan, January 31. Bernaldino 
came yesterday and leaves in the morning. I 
was off on a hunt and did not return till a few 
minutes ago, and will end this letter written 
at different times. ... I am gathering my 
stuff and having a couple of house models 
made. In 20 days I am due in Dumubatu. . . . 
I am well. Remember me to all the workers 
in the Museum. ... P. S. So Harvard 
won the football game too! Baseball, boat 
race, football! 

"Please send five dollars to the fund for 
President Eliot according to the enclosed 
pamphlet. The Filipino trader promises to 
be back in two weeks, and I'll try to have a 
good letter for him to take back. 

"February 1. My dear Simms: You can 
form some notion of where I was and still 
am when I tell you that the Constabulary 
once tried following my track, but got no 
farther than a second town. I helped them 
to get there; but at that point the Ilongots 
quit them cold, whereupon they beat back for 
[ 182] 



IN THE WILDS 

home and comfort. The rains began to set 
in, and one of the officers wrote me with what 
speed they went. Don't get the impression 
that I am in an inaccessible territory. Far 
from that. Only it is hell for people who are 
in a hurry, can't wait, and wish to see action 
and things hum. The officer in command 
has been in the Islands for 8 or 10 years, but 
evidently it will take longer to teach him the 
ways of the East and the costumbre of the 
naked little brown people. ... I ought to 
arrive in Manila during April. I don't mean 
to tarry there any longer than it takes to 
ship my plunder and re-equip; for I wish to 
keep moving as long as I am in condition. . . . 
I've never been lonesome. The fascination of 
the wild life in these wild hills, and ceaseless 
occupation in one thing and another have 
made the days slip by only too rapidly. It 
seems that I came only yesterday. Indeed, 
I am going with reluctance down into the 
Cristiano towns where men go in bare feet, 
shirt-tails, and trousers rolled up to the knee; 
where women stride along with a hip and 
shoulder swing, bosoms raised, and a mouth- 
ful of a 12-inch cigar. You know the familiar 
sight. ... I don't know when I shall come 
home. ... I had an entertaining letter from 

[183] 



WILLIAM JONES 



Lewis. He is the third to tell me that there 
had been no play since I came away, I hardly 
know how to take this kind of thing now. Is 
it that I was a little frivolous ? that I interfered 
in the steady industry of the shop? I was 
never regarded as a very gay creature. On 
the contrary, I have been told that I was too 
sedate and serious. Some have said that I 
should have been a parson, that in fact I re- 
minded them of a preacher in this town or 
one in that. Well, I hope all work will be 
done by the time I come riding in on the 
cars. . . . Perhaps the journey home by 
way of Europe is less exhausting. I hope to 
have Japan on my way when I go, whether 
it be via Europe or the Pacific. W T hatever 
your notion of me, I am still a colt and green 
pastures and still waters are good to my sight 
and ever alluring. You know what some one 
has said about— * You go this way but once.' 
My gait is never fast, but I like it rich with 
vision. . . . 

"February 25, 1909. My dear Dorsey:— I 
am on the Cagayan, going downstream and 
heading for Mayoyao and Manila. The 
cholera is on at Echague and the other towns 
below, and is said to be moving this way. 
Accordingly it may be best for me to hang up 
[184] 



IN THE WILDS 



at Dumubatu till I hear that the plague is 
checked. Word was sent to me that it was 
raging among the paisanos up to a town or 
two below Echague. This is to be regretted, 
but I am glad to know about it here. I can 
keep at work here all the time, but in a 
Cristiano barrio I might be compelled to 
champ the bit with all this stuff with me. 
Before the cholera, a pest came and took off 
all the ponies and carabaos. Previous to that 
came the typhoons which you got a touch of. 
The Ilongots would say that surely the moun- 
tain gods must have it in for the valley. I 
believe the wet season has at last come to an 
end, and the change will be welcome for no 
other reason than that it is a change. The 
river is still pretty full, but it can be travelled 
by lashing two rafts together side by side. It 
was risky farther up where the rapids are 
swifter and rocky curves more frequent. But 
I passed it all without a loss of a single 
thing. 

" . . . On coming back to the river I found 
that the districts had been pretty well knocked 
out by the typhoons. They are gradually 
recovering, but not sufficiently to enable me 
to get the stuff I wanted. What I have is 
representative, but it would have been of 
[185] 



WILLIAM JONES 

better quality had I been able to take it out 
six months ago, or if the typhoons had not 
been so destructive. They say that these 
storms were the worst in their memory or that 
of their fathers. Be that as it may, I never 
saw anything like 'em. Though the sight of 
trees going down, timbers flying, and houses 
crashing to ruin was somewhat disquieting, 
and though the prolonged din and roar of the 
tempest became at length a weariness to the 
spirit and the flesh, it was yet a wonderful 
thing to behold all nature awake and in anger, 
an experience thoroughly worth while withal. 
The rains that followed became as feeble 
trickles, sort of a gentle dew from heaven. 
Still I am not metamorphosed into a duck or 
frog. 

"I tell you what, but I dislike leaving this 
field. I am departing with a reluctant heart, 
but I feel the silent call of the coast east of 
here, and realize that I must go. Things are 
happening all the while, not that they never 
happened before but because I had not yet 
tapped the broken sources of things, and could 
not see or hear what I was blindly groping for 
in the dark. Ground that refused to give way 
is now loosening all around. You've had the 
experience many more times than I, and so it 
[186] 



IN THE WILDS 



is nothing new to you. I simply make men- 
tion of it to have you know at what stage 
psychologically I've arrived in the life of 
these people. 

"Well, at last I've come upon the tales. 
They are curious creations, and some will at 
once remind you of North American variants 
not only as to incident and literary elements 
but as to the cosmic ideas they display. I 
will put the little collection together and send 
them on to you to publish wherever you 
think best. Still yet am I unable to discern if 
the Ilongot has the manito in the Algonkin, 
Sioux, or Pawnee sense. His anitu is a real, 
tangible thing which he names by the mean- 
est words he can think of. In fact the Ilongot 
is very uncomplimentary toward his gods. 
He will go through the list with you, telling 
what good points and what bad points this 
and that god has, and at the end he will curse 
the whole lot and say they are no good. A 
rather interesting attitude this, psychologi- 
cally. ... I am sending my boy Romano 
down to Echague with this and other mail 
to-day, and to have him bring back word 
about the plague. . . . 

"Dumubatu, March 19, 1909. My dear 
Doctor Dorsey: — I thought I had sent you 

[187] 



WILLIAM JONES 

my last letter from this bunch of Ilongots, but 
here goes another because I have a chance to 
send it. I am still here because the men have 
not made balsas enough to raft me and my all 
down to Echague. When Bowers left here 
last fall he cleaned up all the balsas; and 
though the river has fallen two months earlier 
than last year the men have not been able to 
build other balsas. The bamboo material is 
just far enough aw T ay to make it risky to go 
for it. As I write a bunch of men have gone 
out to search for two youths who went for 
bamboo yesterday and have not returned. 
You see the weather is growing more torrid 
every day, and the sun can now shine for a 
whole day at a time. As a result every Ilongot 
house is on the watch for prowlers looking for 
heads, and ambitious youths are off looking 
for the same in other districts. As Captain 
Bowers said at Tamsi when the Ilongots re- 
fused to do his bidding because w^hat he 
wanted involved a taboo: 'This may be good 
ethnology, Jones, but it makes me tired!' 
He said he had seen many foolish people in 
these Islands, but the Ilongot w T as the worst 
of them all. Well, I don't know that I would 
agree with the sentiments he expressed, but he 
is probably correct when he thinks the Ilongot 
[188] 



IN THE WILDS 



exasperating from a practical point of view. 
I shall need about 15 balsas. I've sent for 
Panipagan and Kagadyangan to come down 
with 8, but I don't know what is keeping 
them. I would not bet on it, but I believe I 
shall be out of here in 10 days. 

"I've just returned from a visit of nearly 
a week in the mountains at the west. . . . 
What wearied me was to hear of my Alikod 
friends off on a head hunt, their objective 
being Gumiyod. This place is southwest of 
Ifugu, in the mountains, and is said to be a 
large district. I tried getting there once, but 
my friends balked on account of the rains, the 
prospect of lack of food, and the report that 
a war party of Gumiyod was in the neighbor- 
hood of Alikod. They wanted to get on the 
trail of the party and cut off its return. Please 
don't entertain any notion that I am seeking 
for adventure. Naturally there's a little risk, 
but so there is riding in the cart behind the 
old grey mare. The point is this — warfare 
among the wild men of Luzon is rapidly being 
checked, and this is practically the only terri- 
tory where the mice have free play. And so 
all I've desired and still desire is to observe 
and note what happens. . . . 

"Smith sent me word that the cholera was 

[189] 



WILLIAM JONES 



being checked in the down stream towns. 
Hence all that is keeping me is the lack of 
rafts, but these I can get in time. 

"If I remember it, this is the time the 
winds sweep down 57th Street, the chief 
janitor is economical with his coal, and the 
pipes gurgle lazily. I hope none of you are 
frozen, that all are as well as I am." 



[190] 



XVI 



DANGERS 

Jones was not the man to harp on diffi- 
culty in his own life. Whatever hardships 
appear in the foregoing narrative, it is plain 
that he encountered them all alike with 
patient courage. Yet even by the few 
glimpses given us, we may see clearly one 
fact: that Jones well knew how bloody, 
childish, and bestial were the folk among 
whom he ate and slept, and that he made 
not even the simplest movement rashly. In- 
deed, we may see more: that while in his let- 
ters he told only what was comfortable and 
pleasant, he let his diary confess, by sugges- 
tion here and there, to darker things. The 
letters present his Ilongot companions as 
"little naked brownies, very kind" to him. 
The diary shows them otherwise. It is in the 
diary that they act from day to day their real 
parts, furtive, ungrateful, unclean. It is in 
the diary, not the letters, that we see them 
housed with vermin in their huts, huddling 
beside mangy dogs in the ashes, tearing with 
their filed, blue-black teeth the flesh of a 

[191] 



WILLIAM JONES 

dead sow that stank, talking and performing 
the wildest obscenity. It is the diary which 
records their greed, their lies, their experi- 
mental threats and arrogance, followed by 
"the same old cringing, the same old apologies 
and evasions." The letters do not mention 
that houseful after houseful of drunken blus- 
terers, met by a kind but unshaken fortitude, 
gave in, left off their loud menaces, and 
kneeling, repulsively stroked their conqueror 
on the arms and legs. Nor do the letters tell 
how Jones, one day at Alikod, facing alone 
two hundred highland warriors greedy for 
plunder, informed them that their young 
men were weaker than women, that he was 
ashamed of them and disappointed, that they 
could go now and relieve him of their society. 
All this, more than this, our dear friend met 
and suffered and dared, but never told: it is 
jotted down in memoranda which he thought 
nobody else would see. Not fear, but re- 
flection and the sense of humor, caused him 
to add — ' 'If these people w r ould only stop to 
think, they could bring almost any kind of 
pressure against me." 

Besides these intimations of his moral 
sovereignty, the private journal contains our 
only hint that Dr. Jones had received fore- 
[ 192] 



DANGERS 



warning; that at night, in the tangle of naked 
legs and half -sheathed bolos round the hearth, 
lighted by fire or the smoking rosin stone, he 
slept with his head pillow T ed on his revolver, 
or on the flanks of Dona his hound. The 
diary, but no letter, speaks out as follows: — 
"Saturday, June 20 [at Panipagan], — While 
at tiffin a man came in w T ith a chicken. It was 
given to me because it had flown near my 
head when I was out among the people yes- 
terday. I don't remember the time, place, or 
hen; but they said it really happened, and 
that the bird was destined for me. I took it, 
and gave the man some salt." — " Friday, 
August 28 [at Tamsi], — The Alikod people 
had an interesting story to tell me last night. 
They told me that when I was in Panipagan 
a plan was set to kill me; that I was to be 
made to pass a place where a tree would be 
felled upon me; that the tree was felled but 
missed me; that the man who was commis- 
sioned to carry this out was Kandag, . . . 
and that when the attempt failed, the man 
had fetched me a chicken. I said that I had 
been given a chicken by a man who claimed 
it had flown by my head and was therefore 
destined for me. They gave this the laugh." 
Jones knew the risk he ran by day and 

[193] 



WILLIAM JONES 

night. He was not foolhardy. His Indian 
caution more than matched the wiles of these 
head-hunters, his sleep was infinitely lighter 
than theirs, his footfall more wary. "I 
came," he says in the diary, "upon a family 
resting in the shade of a booth, and was on 
them before they knew anything about it. 
I've done this so many times that I am now 
curious to know if it can be connected with 
poor hearing.' ' In another passage he laughs 
to scorn the night guards of the jungle tribes, 
the sentinels of their war parties, and their 
scouts. We may be sure, on the other hand, 
that although Jones felt his watchfulness to 
be superior to theirs, he did not relax it. All 
up and down the Cagayan, from village to 
trackless village, he had won great authority, 
which he used without fear, single-handed, 
whether leading a band of spearmen through 
the dense kogon, or presiding at conferences, 
or checking massacre. But that authority 
never made Jones careless or secure: he main- 
tained it by vigilance, and pursued his policy 
of quiet friendship. He was there to work, to 
be with and of the people at all times, in dan- 
ger and out : to work and watch and learn and 
record. This he did, wisely and faithfully, 
Even when lying sick in a hut, he observed 
[194] 



DANGERS 



with the minutest care how arrows were made 
and bowstrings twisted. 

What Dr, Jones himself thought of his life 
and labors, we read in the following letter. 
One of the last he ever wrote, it would seem 
strangely enough to review all his experience 
under the approaching shadow of the close. 

"February 25, 1909. Dear Marlborough — 
Your letter of November 10th came to me 
about a month ago. I will answer it now and 
have it ready to send when the chance comes. 
It was good to hear from you, Marlborough, 
a happy reminder of past associations of the 
Academy and the college and the lads we 
used to know. I wonder how the men are 
doing, how they are faring in the game, how 
many rest content with only the ante, what 
ones keep opening and who stay, and who 
keep raising the limit. As for me, I am just 
so so, moving along in an even gait, sort of a 
dog-trot. You know I was no intellectual 
light, no winner of scholastic honors and the 
other worthy prizes. Therefore, I'm doing no 
miracles, nor clouding the air with dust and 
sand. After we had done our playful stunts, 
drunk the punch and beer, and took our 
leave-takings, I went down to New York and 
became connected with the Museum of Natu- 
[195] 



WILLIAM JONES 

ral History there. I was with the institution 
for 4 years, and then with it and the Carnegie 
Institution for 2 more years. All the while I 
put the springs, summers, and falls mostly in 
the wood and lake country of the North, and 
wintered in the big city which I came to love 
for reasons hard to define. Then a couple of 
years ago I went to the Field Museum of 
Natural History in Chicago, to come on the 
chase out here. I had a pleasing journey 
through Japan and down the China coast, 
lingering here and there, and became infected 
with the something that makes those who 
have been there to desire to return, despite 
its filth, plagues, and all the other horrors. 
My work makes me lead the life of a gypsy, 
but it suits my heart nevertheless. I was 
born out of doors, and the only sheltered life 
I have had was when you and I came to know 
each other. Now it looks as if I shall keep 
on under the open sky, and at the end lie 
down out of doors, which, of course, is as it 
should be. I don't know how long I shall re- 
main on this side of the spinning ball. My 
stay is indefinite. The plan was for me to 
journey also to other islands away from this 
Archipelago, go to India, and the good old 
Lord only knows where else. My prayer is 
[196] 



DANGERS 



that I may have the health and life to do it. 
I've been in the Islands about 19 months. 
Thus far my head seems clear, heart and 
lungs in good working order, so far as I know. 
Therefore, when you come out to the Islands, 
I shall very likely be somewhere around. My 
address is always with the Bureau of Science, 
Manila. And if you send word there telling 
where you are, I shall get it some time. Don't 
become impatient if you don't receive an im- 
mediate reply, for I am generally, as at 
present, out of the reach of mail and tele- 
graphic communication. For that matter, it 
does not necessarily mean that because one 
lives near or along a mail and telegraphic 
route, one will get the letters and telegrams 
sent to one. This is the Philippines and not 
the U. S. A., so smother your wrath and act 
as if you don't give a darn, whether you feel 
like it or not, when a letter or telegram goes 
astray. 

"I am still up the Cagayan River in East- 
ern Luzon sojourning among the wild folk 
called Ilongots. I was further up the River, 
but am now heading down stream. It is no 
use for me to give names of places, for none of 
them are on the map. The people who made 
the map of this country were a cheerful lot. 

[197] 



WILLIAM JONES 

They did it on their imagination because it 
was a little inconvenient to come up and do a 
pretty picture of the real thing. I am heading 
for Manila, but I have word that the cholera 
is doing mischief in the Cristiano pueblos 
down stream. I've a lot of plunder on my 
hands, things which these people make, and 
rather than run the risk of being held up 
where church bells are tolling for the dead, 
I've decided to remain where I am for a while. 
Hence it will be April or May before I can 
reach Manila. I don't mind being here. In 
fact I enjoy it. I've been among these people 
now for about ten months, having their 
presence day and night. On the whole, I've 
had a pretty good time. It is not so much the 
society of the Ilongot that has enchanted me, 
but rather the free life in these wild, rugged 
hills and silent gloomy jungles. The Ilongot 
interests me only in an objective sense, for 
what he has and does, the way he lives and 
dies, his relations toward his fellow men and 
how he adjusts himself to the narrow world 
about him. There are no trails in the country 
of these people, and it is all foot work. In 
going from one district to another, the way 
is up and down mountains, along and over 
bogs and boulders, through dense thickets 
[198] 



DANGERS 

and tall razor-bladed grass, up and down 
streams up the ankle or to the waist. Deer 
and wild hogs are abundant. Where the 
country is open I can get a little hunting like 
at home. But the greater part of the hunting 
is with dogs. The dogs jump the game and 
the men lie in wait for it to pass at an exit 
and send an arrow into it. I've had some 
carabao hunting, but steel nosed bullets are 
only ticklers. Unless you catch the beast 
where it lives your shooting is only target 
practice. A 30-30 soft nose would do the 
trick, for it has the smashing power to stop 
the animal. Be on your guard if you hunt 
the animal when you come out here. It's a 
fighter all the time, and an ugly one at that. 
When it throws up its head on seeing you, it 
is coming, and coming like hell. So what 
you do, do it P. D. Q. But it's fine sport, and 
very satisfying when successfully over. The 
military haven't subdued this neck of the 
woods yet. That is one reason why I made a 
bee-line for it. My friends still hunt heads 
as they've done since days far back in time. 
When you come and we are in the shade of a 
cool verandah with a little 'pizen' and rolled 
dusky leaves, I'll tell you a whole lot of this 
life and country. I am looking forward to 
[199] 



WILLIAM JONES 



seeing you now. I shall have a lot to ask. 
My memory is poor, but a few things still 
hang on 

"And so you are married and have a 
growing daughter. Well, that is pretty fine, 
Marlborough. You and Don and some of 
the others are pretty lucky. Occasionally I 
get an announcement of this man and of that 
getting married, but it is always a long while 
after the event. For I have grown used to 
getting letters in a bunch after I come in from 
a long trip. It has been bad in one sense. A 
great deal of work is then piled on my hands, 
and many of these letters have gone astray 
and have never been acknowledged. Lastima ! 

"I am glad to learn that you were along 
when the soldiers made that march from 
Riley in 1905. I remember the newspaper 
account of it. I wish the Plains could have 
remained as they were when I was a i kid.' I 
hope you passed through the least civilized 
section of it. I went down to Oklahoma be- 
fore leaving the States to take a last look. I 
cannot put into words the feeling of remorse 
that rose within me at the things I saw. The 
whole region was disfigured with a most re- 
pelling ugliness — windmills, oil wells, wire 
fences. Go to so and so for drugs, go to an- 
[200] 



DANGERS 



other for groceries, and so on. The cowboy 
and the frontiersman were gone. The Indians 
were in overalls and looked like 'bums.' The 
picturesque costumes, the wigwams, horse- 
men, were things of the past. The virgin 
prairies were no more. And now they say 
that the place is a state! Nevertheless you 
saw the stars that I used to see. Did you ever 
behold clearer moonlight nights anywhere 
else? Did you hear the lone cry of the wolf 
and the yelp of the coyote? I wish you could 
have seen the long horn and the old time 
punchers. The present would-be punchers 
are of a different build. 

"I would write a little longer, but I must 
stop to do other letters. I've a messenger 
going to the Cristiano towns and I want him 
to take the mail. I thank you for your letter, 
Marlborough. Don't let it be the last. Pass 
a kind word along to any of our old friends 
we have and tell them howdy. And may the 
Lord be merciful to your sinful soul, and bring 
you safe to Manila, where we can open a cool 
bottle and another in memory of other days 
and of friends 5,000 miles or more away. 

"Yours very sincerely, 
"William Jones." 



[201 ] 



XVII 



THE LAST DAY 

Balsas — bamboo rafts — were needed to 
bring Dr. Jones and his ethnologic freight 
down river to the friendly huts at Dumubatu 
and the Cristiano town of Echague. Two 
hamlets, Panipagan and Kagadyangan, had 
promised and failed to bring these balsas, had 
promised again and failed again, until even 
the doctor's patience had been taxed. At 
last, on the evening of March 28, 1909, he 
received a fresh promise that the rafts would 
be ready, and an appointment to meet their 
polers at Pung-gu landing, above the rapids 
of that name. 

Morning broke darkly on March 29th, with 
a drizzle of rain. By ten o'clock, however, 
out came the sun to set the river and the 
green jungle shining. Dr. Jones wrote the 
final entry in his journal, and put off from 
Panipagan, where he had spent a troubled 
night, to paddle up the two miles of broken 
water to the rendezvous. With him went his 
faithful boy Romano, and a Dumubatu man 
as boatman, a trusty fellow named Gonuat, 
[202] 



THE LAST DAY 



or Ganwat. Romano was frightened. He 
afterward said that his master had for some 
time slept badly. The very boat they sat in 
was of ill omen, — a banquilla borrowed from 
one Pascual Batag, a trader whom people 
dreaded because, it was said, he could poison 
by a touch. The time of year was an uneasy 
time: the spring, when cutters of bamboo 
distrust the jungle, when the head-hunting 
fever sends each ambitious lover abroad for 
a trophy. The fear was not yet dead that 
cholera might come upstream; and the last 
words the doctor wrote in his journal describe 
an enigmatic barrier — bamboo poles and 
shaved bejuco vines festooned across the 
river — to ward off, it would seem, the ap- 
proach of deadly sickness from below. 

About noon, the travellers reached the ap- 
pointed place by Pung-gu rapids. Here the 
Cagayan runs through a narrow gorge of 
grayish rock, which in the tropic sun glares 
white. The river itself, at this season a fast, 
deep, smooth, foreboding body of water, 
beautifully blue, passes between clustered 
boulders on the one hand, and on the other a 
small crescent beach of gray sand, towered 
above and cut off by a pointed crag two hun- 
dred and fifty feet high. This crag stands 
[ 203 ] 



WILLIAM JONES 



like a huge flat-iron set up on its heel. Boul- 
ders, piled ashore by many a freshet, flank its 
base up-stream; boulders and sharp hogon 
thicket, down-stream; so that the gray sand 
beach has little or no exit but by the hurrying 
river. One who visited the place afterwards,* 
observed that its isolation made it an almost 
perfect trap. 

In company with Dr. Jones, his boy Ro- 
mano, and the honest Gonuat, came three 
unwilling natives, — Maging, Dinampul, and 
old Takadan, the Kapunwan or captain from 
one of the dilatory villages. What then 
troubled the minds of these three, we can 
never know; or what words had passed be- 
tween them and a certain Tolan, a messenger 
who had run off through rain and gathering 
darkness, the night before. The party landed 
below the flat-iron rock, and awaited the com- 
ing of the rafts. Only four came. The num- 
ber was in itself a flagrant broken promise, like 
many foregoing promises. On the rafts or 
with them came more than twenty savages, 
each bearing shield and spear, bow and ar- 
rows, the itan or head-taking bolo. 

A little tree grew, if it does not stand till 

* Dr. S. C. Simms, who ascended the Cagayan and brought back 
Dr. Jones's collection to this country. 

[204] 



THE LAST DAY 



this day, on the beach at Pung-gu. Near this 
tree the assembled Uongots built a fire and 
cooked rice and fish. Dr. Jones ate heartily, 
with the same good appetite as of old. Gonuat 
the boatman did likewise. But young Ro- 
mano Dumaliang could not eat, though 
pressed with invitations. "I felt something 
was wrong," he said afterward. "I did not 
know why I was suspicious, but my heart was 
fluttering." Instinct, a sense of evil round- 
about, whatever it was that oppressed him 
in the hot noon air between crag and river, 
Romano could not eat. 

"I said to the doctor: 'Let us go now, and 
let the Uongots come afterwards with the 
balsas.' 

"The doctor replied: 'No. Why do you 
want to go now? If we go now they will not 
come with the balsas. So we will wait until 
they prepare the balsas.' " 

The mid-day meal was finished. Most of 
the company squatted on the beach, near 
their weapons. Romano and Gonuat retired 
to the poisoner's banquilla, which waited at 
the water's edge. Dr. Jones remained to con- 
sult, laughing while he talked, with the aged 
captain Takadan. He laid his hand on the 
old man's shoulder, bidding him come down 

[205] 



WILLIAM JONES 



in the banquilla as far as Dumubatu, where 
he should receive gifts whenever the promised 
boats arrived. 

There was in this crowd of brown men a 
fellow named Palidat, whom Jones had cured 
of a sickness, "a man," says Romano, "whom 
the doctor considered his good friend and to 
whom he had given many presents/' a man 
who had won renown by killing the mother 
of an enemy. This Palidat drew near while 
Dr. Jones and old Takadan were speaking. 
He patted the doctor on the shoulder, and 
smiled. 

"We shall bring more balsas to-morrow," 
said he; and at the same instant, reaching 
swiftly, drew his bolo and struck for the white 
man's neck. 

The blow must have come like lightning 
out of that clear noon. Even so, Jones 
dodged quickly enough to catch it across his 
forehead. Dazed, blind with rushing blood, 
he sprang back toward the river, and fumbled 
behind him for the Luger pistol. Lives have 
hung on trifles before now, but no braver life 
or kinder heart ever hung upon a button. 
The button of the holster flap was fastened. 
While Jones tugged it loose, the squatting 
cowards jumped up and rushed at him, 
[206] 



THE LAST DAY 



twenty and more to one. In the press, a 
certain Yapogo sliced him across the right 
arm. Another sturdy brute, Gacad by name, 
speared him below the heart, dealing a mortal 
blow just as the doctor drew his weapon. 
Maging also, his fellow traveller of that morn- 
ing, had thrust the point of a spear butt 
through the wounded arm. Jones, barely 
able to stand, began firing, but could neither 
see nor swing revolver. The Ilongots sprang 
apart, so that the eleven bullets flew harmless 
among them. 

Meanwhile — to their everlasting honor — 
out from the banquilla tumbled boatman and 
servant, vainly attempting a rescue. Gonuat 
drew his bolo, fought, was overpowered, and 
flung back, striking his neck so violently on 
the gunwale that he remained half stunned 
throughout the rest of that day. Romano 
Dumaliang, the terrified youth of seventeen 
years, clutched a bolo blade in his naked 
hand, grappled with the tall Maging, and 
while wrestling in the water, got a spear 
through his hip. Between them, these two 
faithful servants dragged their master into 
the boat, which they pushed off from shore. 
The Ilongots ran, flinging spears after them. 
Dr. Jones contrived to put another clip of 
[207] 



WILLIAM JONES 



cartridges into his revolver, and gave it to 
Romano, who fired with his hand bleeding, 
shot Yapogo dead through the head, and sent 
all the others diving into the kogon grass or 
the river. Some ran along the heights and 
sent down poisoned arrows. As soon as 
Pung-gu rapids caught the boat, the fight 
was over. 

The ill-fated banquilla shot down-stream, 
bearing three almost senseless men. The 
time of day was somewhere after two o'clock. 
Dr. Jones, with death upon him, cared first 
for his bleeding servant, Romano, and bound 
up the boy's wounds. As for himself, he said 
that he should not die, but conjured Romano 
to steer well through the many rapids, lest 
the dug-out strike a water-level rock and 
leave them a prey to crocodiles. Later, as they 
sped down the deep canons, and as the doctor 
felt his strength to fail with the failing light, 
he gave Romano his watch as a parting gift, 
explained how all his papers and collections 
should be cared for and sent down to Echague. 
By what account we possess, the doctor ap- 
pears to have suffered little pain. At any 
rate, he made no mention of suffering. In 
deep twilight the boat reached Dumubatu. 
Romano, following orders, went up among the 
[208] 



THE LAST DAY 



hovels and called the people, who came down 
to the shore and set a guard roundabout; for 
the doctor's only fear had been that those 
Ilongots up-river might descend and take his 
head. 

About an hour later, Romano put some 
question to his master, who lay still in the 
boat. He received no answer. Jones had 
quietly closed his eyes forever, while the 
great stream ran silent underneath him, and 
tropic stars burned overhead. 

The guard of savages wept bitterly upon 
the shore 



[209] 



XVIII 



CONCLUSION 

The body of William Jones was rafted down 
upon a balsa to Echague. There, on Thurs- 
day evening, April 1st, 1909, it was buried 
in the Municipal Cemetery, two lonely Ameri- 
cans reading over the grave those words con- 
cerning man that is born of woman. 

All up and down the wilds of the Cagayan 
River — now less w T ild for his presence there — 
remain the signs and traces of our friend. 
Stilted booths which before held nothing but 
deer skulls and hog bones, now contain what 
is left of his free-handed giving, — ornaments, 
cloth, metal, tools, and whatever else im- 
providence could not consume. Tamsi has 
dogs named Dona, after his famous hound. 
Panipagan and Alikod now call their babies 
Lomano, honoring the young Romano who 
caught a bare blade in his bare hand. A 
Governor-General of the Islands wrote: — "Dr. 
Jones took the chance that you and I know it 
is necessary to take in performing such work 
[210] 



CONCLUSION 



as he was doing, and lost! It seems like the 
irony of fate that he should have been made 
away with by Ilongots after he had done so 
much to help and protect them. Such re- 
cent legislative and administrative measures as 
have been adopted, calculated to better their 
condition, were based directly on the informa- 
tion which I received from him. In fact, 
when I first heard of his death and learned 
that it was ascribed to Ilongots . . . with 
whom I knew that he had lived on friendly 
terms, the idea immediately occurred to me 
that the real murderers might not improbably 
be the Christian natives whose abuse of the 
wild people he had reported." It was their 
benefactor whom these people slew, without 
reason or motive, as boys might kill a squirrel. 

Enough has been said. It is not the busi- 
ness of this narrative to tell how Dr. Jones's 
murderers were captured, tried and sentenced 
to death by the Court of First Instance, given 
a foolish clemency by the Supreme Court of 
the Islands, and allowed by their native con- 
stabulary guard to escape. Dr. Jones asked 
the government for nothing, but went forward 
by himself, and gave his service like a good 
American. 

Nor does this book care to praise a man who 
[211] 



WILLIAM JONES 



never looked for praise. His record speaks. 
Jones would have it so, and rest content to be 
remembered by a few. He lived fearless and 
upright, in obedience to the Great Mystery. 

"The valiant never taste of death but once." 



[212] 



WRITINGS OF WILLIAM JONES 



Episodes in the Culture-Hero Myth of the 
Sauks and Foxes, The Journal of American 
Folk-Lore, Vol. XIV, Oct.-Dec. 1901. 

Some Principles of Algonquian Word-Formation, 
American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 6, 
No. 3, Supplement 1904. (This was the thesis 
written for doctor's degree.) 

The Algonkin Manitou, The Journal of American 
Folk-Lore, Vol. XVIII, July-Sept., 1905. 

Central Algonquin, Archaeological Report, Toronto, 
Canada, 1905. 

An Algonquin Syllabary, Boas Anniversary Volume 
(New York, G. E. Stechert), 1906, pp. 88-93. 

Mortuary Observances and the Adoption Rites 
of the Algonquin Foxes of Iowa, Congres In- 
ternational des Americanists, Quebec, 1907. 

Fox Texts, Publications of the American Ethnologi- 
cal Society, Vol. I, 1907. 

Notes on the Fox Indians, The Journal of American 
Folk-Lore, April-June, 1911. 

Algonquian (Fox), An Illustrative Sketch, Hand- 
book of American Indian Languages [Bulletin 40, 
Part I, of Bureau of American Ethnology (Boas), 
pp. 735-874], 1911. 



JUL 17 19!2 



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